Issue 35 | December 2024
Welcome to the December edition of Pass It On News.
A bi-monthly newsletter bringing you the headlines and new policies, procedures and guidance from your West Sussex Safeguarding Adults Board.
In this newsletter
The Board Support Team would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Thank you for all of your support over the last 12 months.
The Team will be away from the office during the Bank Holidays. We look forward to working with you all in January 2025.
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In October we held our first in-person Conference since before the Covid-19 pandemic. The Conference focussed on self-neglect and ‘Ten years on from the Care Act’. We were also joined by an adult with lived experience, Tom, who shared his experiences of adult social care and the criminal justice system.
We'd like to take this opportunity to thank all of our speakers, as well as everybody who attended and made the day such a resounding success.
See also:
We have now published the Safeguarding Adults Review in respect of Tom. Please ensure that you read the report, along with the associated learning resources, and share them widely within your organisations.
At the time of publication of this report, Tom is 41 years of age and refuses to be defined by his disabilities. He has a diagnosis of cerebral palsy, complex postural needs, and has a sight impairment. Tom requires a carer to be available 24 hours a day and uses a motorised wheelchair at all times. Tom is currently living in his own accommodation in Chichester, after living in an emergency place of safety, a residential care service, since August 2020.
Prior to his move, Tom lived in the community with his now ex-wife and his live-in carer. From 2016, Tom began to experience neglect and emotional/psychological abuse by his then wife, and paid carer. The abuse and neglect became significantly worse over time, and Tom became isolated from his family and friends. In 2020, Tom’s friend became concerned about Tom’s circumstances, following contact from Tom. This led to Tom’s friend contacting Tom’s mother, who subsequently made a safeguarding referral to West Sussex County Council.
Tom’s ex-wife and paid carer were arrested in the first case of its kind in the UK. On 12 May 2023, both were found guilty of holding a person in slavery/servitude and jailed for eight years and a further three years on licence.
Access the report and associated learning resources:
Our self-neglect meta-analysis identified that, although the Sussex Self-Neglect Procedures provide a clear self-neglect pathway, there are a series of potential issues with implementing procedures into practice.
We have therefore developed a complex needs toolkit for use by all staff, which includes guidance and information around working with adults with complex needs, including those who self-neglect. The toolkit includes various accompanying templates, which can be used and adapted by all agencies, in areas including multi-agency working, risk assessment, and mental capacity.
Access the Complex Needs Toolkit:
See also:
Some of our recent Safeguarding Adults Reviews (SARs) have highlighted the importance of ensuring a person-centred approach is adopted when working with adults with care and support needs.
Where possible, agencies are encouraged to actively involve the adult in discussions, and to ensure that written evidence of the adult’s views and thoughts are recorded. For information and tips about recording in a person-centred way, please read our learning briefing.
Access the learning briefing:
18 - 22 November was the Ann Craft Trust Safeguarding Adults Week 2024.
Following the success of last year's daily bulletins for Safeguarding Adults Week, we once again shared daily bulletins linked to the Ann Craft Trust themes. These bulletins included useful learning resources and articles by member agencies. Across the week, the bulletins were read more than 3,000 times.
We'd like to thank everybody who contributed to these bulletins. If you missed them, you can find them on our website, alongside the bulletins from last year:
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18 - 29 November was the NHS Safeguarding and Children in Care Team's Safeguarding Fortnight.
As part of this week, we, alongside East Sussex and Brighton & Hove Safeguarding Adults Boards and our GP Board member, delivered a Working with Self-Neglect online training session. The session was attended by over 100 staff from across the partnership.
The training included what self-neglect is, learning from our self-neglect Safeguarding Adults Reviews, resources available, including policies and procedures to support, and how to use the safeguarding threshold document to consider if a safeguarding response might be needed. We also took the opportunity to promote our new self-neglect practice guidance for working with adults where safeguarding thresholds aren’t met. There was fantastic feedback with 98% of attendees saying their confidence with working with self-neglect had improved as a result of the session and with feedback including, “This training has been invaluable; concise, professional and relevant.” We’re looking forward to delivering our short self-neglect briefing sessions next year, which you’ll hear about soon.
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We are pleased to share that in 2025 we will be running a series of eight online self-neglect staff briefing sessions, for staff across the partnership.
These briefing sessions will support you with understanding: what self-neglect is; what our Safeguarding Adults Reviews and audits tell us about self-neglect in West Sussex; what the national picture is; and how we can support your practice when working with adults experiencing self-neglect.
To book on to one of the following dates, please email: safeguardingadultsboard@westsussex.gov.uk.
- Mon 13 January 2025 | 10:00-10:40
- Tues 21 January 2025 | 14:00-14:40
- Wed 29 January 2025 | 10:00-10:40
- Fri 7 February 2025 | 14:00-14:40
- Thu 13 February 2025 | 14:00-14:40
- Mon 24 February 2025 | 10:00-10:40
- Tues 4 March 2025 | 11:00-11:40
- Wed 12 March 2025 | 14:00-14:40
View the promotional flyer:
As part of ongoing work being undertaken by the three Sussex Safeguarding Adults Boards and statutory partners to continually develop and review the online Sussex Safeguarding Policy and Procedures, the chapter on quality and safeguarding has recently been updated.
The quality and safeguarding chapter considers the interface between quality of care and safeguarding in health and social care settings. It explains where responsibilities for care and support services sit (including the role of the CQC), when safeguarding concerns should be raised in relation to quality issues, and provides guidance on responding to organisational abuse.
The newly updated chapter contains increased detail on where roles and responsibilities for care and support services sit, further information on quality monitoring arrangements, new sections on both responsibility for quality and organisational risk, as well as links to other guidance and Sussex Safeguarding Adults Boards Protocols.
Access the updated chapter:
Self-neglect has been identified as a key priority across Sussex, and features in a number of Safeguarding Adults Reviews. As such, the Sussex Safeguarding Adults Policy and Procedures self-neglect chapter is currently being updated, and we have published a BRAND NEW Sussex Self-Neglect Practice Guidance for Staff document.
Self-neglect can describe a wide range of situations or behaviours experienced by a person. Each circumstance is unique. It could be someone whose personal care or health is deteriorating due to a lack of attention, or where they are not maintaining their home environment for so long that it becomes overly muddled or dirty, and therefore unsafe to their health or the wellbeing of others.
This guidance provides staff with practice guidance when working with adults who are self-neglecting. It has been created in recognition that in a lot of situations, self-neglect practice sits outside of safeguarding; that is, it does not meet the threshold for a Section 42 safeguarding enquiry under the Care Act 2014.
Access the Sussex Self-Neglect Practice Guidance for Staff:
Section 2.11. ‘Adult safeguarding and sharing information’ has been updated within
the Sussex Safeguarding Adults Policy and Procedures.
As part of these changes we have:
- added new content around consent and information-sharing;
- reviewed and added additional links to our Sussex-wide protocols, such as the
Information Sharing Protocol and the Sussex Safeguarding Thresholds Guidance;
- promoted the importance of robust multi-agency communication and working through
forums such as Multi-Agency Risk Management (MARM) meetings in Sussex;
- introduced new content on the importance of ensuring effective communication and
sharing of information when a person moves across geographical areas and the risk
of abuse or neglect remains.
Access the updated chapter:
Multi-agency working refers to a way of working that involves professionals from different agencies collaboratively combining their skills, expertise and knowledge, with the joint goal of meeting an individual’s needs, including multiple and compound needs. Good communication, common goals, understanding, and teamwork is essential for effective multi-agency working.
Working effectively together is critical to safeguarding to ensure that a high standard of coordinated care is provided to the adult, allowing them to feel better supported and more engaged within their own care. Multi-agency working allows for best practice, experience, and skill sharing, increasing learning opportunities and leads to positive working relationships which in turn, increases the likelihood of positive outcomes for the adult.
The Sussex Safeguarding Adults Policy and Procedures contain detailed guidance for practitioners around: convening multi-agency meetings; managing disagreements between professionals; Making Safeguarding Personal; information-sharing; and risk assessment.
Access the multi-agency working chapter:
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