Prevention

Section 2 of the Care Act requires Local Authorities to ensure the provision of preventative services (i.e. services which help prevent or delay the development of care and support needs or reduce care and support needs). Organisations should take a broad community approach to establishing safeguarding arrangements, working together on prevention strategies.

A core responsibility of a Safeguarding Adults Board is to have an overview of prevention strategies and ensure they are linked to the Health & Wellbeing Boards, Quality Surveillance Groups and Community Safety Partnerships.

Prevention strategies might include:

Partners should embrace strategies that support action before harm can occur. Where abuse or neglect has occurred, steps should be taken to prevent it from reoccurring wherever possible, doing so within relevant information sharing parameters but sharing intelligence to support a holistic partnership approach to prevention.

Organisations involved with adults with care and support needs should implement robust risk management processes that identify adults at risk of abuse or neglect and take timely appropriate action. Safeguarding functions should be integrated into quality management and assurance structures.

Prevention should be discussed at every stage of safeguarding and is especially important at the closure stage (which can happen at any time) when working with adults on resilience and recovery. Discussions between staff, practitioners and adults, their personal networks and the wider community (if appropriate) help build up resilience as part of the recovery process. Where support is needed to prevent abuse, this needs to be identified and central to any safeguarding planning.