Roles and Responsibilities

Safeguarding Adults Boards

The main objective of a Safeguarding Adults Board is to assure itself that local safeguarding arrangement and partners act to help and protect adults in its area who meet the criteria set out in Care Act 2014 Section 42. Every Safeguarding Adults Board has a strategic role that is greater than the sum of the operational duties of the core partners. It oversees and leads adult safeguarding across the locality and will be interested in a range of matters that contribute to the prevention of abuse and neglect. These will include the safety of patients in its local health services, quality of local care and support services, and awareness and responsiveness of further education services. It is important that Safeguarding Adults Board partners feel able to challenge each other and other organisations where it believes that their actions or inactions are increasing the risk of abuse or neglect. This will include commissioners, as well as providers of services.

A Safeguarding Adults Board has three core duties:

Local Authority

Each Local Authority acts as the first point of contact for all Safeguarding concerns.

• Bracknell
• Reading
• Slough
• Windsor & Maidenhead
• West Berkshire Council
• Wokingham

The Local Authority is required to make, or cause others to make, enquiries where they believe an adult with care and support needs is experiencing, or is at risk or abuse or neglect, and unable to protect themselves. This involves determining what action is needed to protect the adult and ensuring such action is taken.

Upon receipt of a concern, information will be gathered to build up a picture of the circumstances of the person(s) subject to the concerns and in order to assess whether an intervention under safeguarding is appropriate.

Police

Thames Valley Police are statutory members of the Safeguarding Adults Board. Many forms of abuse or neglect may amount to criminal offences. Whilst Safeguarding is everyone’s business; prevention, identification, investigation, risk management and detection of criminal offences is a fundamental role of the Police.

Criminal investigations and safeguarding enquiries will need to be undertaken in parallel; the Police co-ordinate criminal investigations with wider safeguarding responses – this requires partnership, effective communication and co-operation, making best use of each organisation's skills and expertise in order to achieve safe, effective and timely outcomes for those at risk. Information on best practice in this respect is available with the multiagency procedures.

Integrated Care Board

The NHS Accountability and Assurance Framework 2019 (updated 2024) sets out the framework for Adult Safeguarding within the Health Service. It clearly sets out roles, duties and responsibilities of agencies commissioning NHS health care. It does not generate new policy or priorities, but articulates how the performance of the wider NHS, with respect to duties and priorities defined elsewhere, will be delivered and assured.

The ICB is the statutory partner of the Safeguarding Adults Board. They are the commissioner of local health services and needs to assure itself that the organisations from which they commission, have effective safeguarding arrangements in place. ICB’s are responsible for securing the expertise of Designated Professionals on behalf of the local health system. Designated Professionals and Adult Safeguarding leads undertake a whole health economy role – it is crucial they play an integral role in all parts of the commissioning cycle, from procurement to quality assurance if appropriate services are to be commissioned that support those at risk of abuse or neglect, as well as effectively safeguarding their wellbeing. Safeguarding forms part of the NHS standard contract and commissioners will need to agree with providers what contract monitoring processes are used to demonstrate compliance with safeguarding duties.

ICB’s must gain assurance from all commissioner services throughout the year to ensure continuous improvement. Assessment may consist of assurance visits, sec 11 audits (Childrens Act 2004) and attendance at provider safeguarding committees. ICB’s are also required to demonstrate they have appropriate systems in place for discharge of their statutory duties in terms of safeguarding.

Coroner

It is their role to establish cause of death if it’s not known, and to ensure about the cause if due to violence or otherwise appears unnatural. Coroners inquire into the causes and circumstance of a death under section 5 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009; inquiries are directed solely to ascertain:

• who the deceased was;
• how, when and where the deceased came by his or her death; and,
• the particulars (if any) required by the Births Deaths and Registrations Act 1953 to be registered concerning the death.

A Coroner will conduct an investigation (legal inquiry) when informed that the body of a person (the 'deceased') is lying within their district (geographical 'jurisdiction'). However, following the commencement of the Coroners (Investigations) Regulations 2013 the Coroner will no longer be restricted to holding inquests within their own districts and will have the option to relocate if it is in the interests of the bereaved family.

The Coroner is expected to open an inquest where there is reasonable suspicion that the deceased has died a violent or unnatural death, where the cause of death is unknown or if the deceased died while in custody or state detention as defined by section 1(2) of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009.

In addition, the Coroner will also investigate where the deceased has not been seen by the doctor issuing the medical certificate, or during the 14 days before the death.

Any situation where it is thought abuse or neglect may have contributed to or resulted in death in any way must be referred to the coroner at the earliest opportunity. Likewise, where it is anticipated someone is likely to die as a result of abuse or neglect, this should also be reported to the coroner at the earliest opportunity. This will enable the coroner to make investigation, postmortem and inquest decisions in a timely manner. In addition, referral to the coroner must be made in the following circumstances:

• If a person dies whilst subject to a s42 enquiry and there is any possibility that the reasons for the safeguarding concern may be linked in any way to the death.
• If a person dies within 30 days of a s42 enquiry being completed and there is any possibility that the reasons for the safeguarding concern may be linked in any way to the death.
• Where there are concerns of organisational abuse – this will alert the coroner to services about which there are significant concerns.
• Any service wherein it is identified there appears to be an unexpected high death rate.

The coroner will also inform the Safeguarding Adults Team of any deaths they consider may be due to safeguarding concerns or any unusually high death rate, to inform decisions about whether a s42 enquiry, large scale enquiry or Safeguarding Adults Review is required.

Core partners to inform the SAB of any Reg 28 notices that are issued in relation to statutory safeguarding duties.

Partner Agencies

Each organisation involved with people with care and support needs, will have its own internal safeguarding procedures, which should comply with the Pan Berkshire multi-agency framework, and should clearly set out the responsibilities for all persons who operate within them. These internal procedures must include:

• Statement of purpose relating to promoting wellbeing, preventing harm and responding effectively to concern raised
• Statement of roles and responsibilities, authority and accountability, specific enough to ensure all personnel understand their role and limitations
• Statement of process for dealing with safeguarding concerns, including for emergency situations and reporting to Police when appropriate
• Full information on how to make a referral, whether inside office hours, or not, including a comprehensive list of contact details both locally and nationally
• Information on how to record allegations, enquiries and all associated work
• Full description of channels for multi-agency communication and procedures for information sharing and decision making
• Details of how professional disagreements are to be resolved, especially with regard to disagreements about whether a referral should be made or not

Procedures should be updated to incorporate learning from published research, peer reviews, case law and Safeguarding Adults Reviews. Where appropriate, partner agencies should agree to integrate assessment tools, which identify risk of abuse and neglect into their assessment practice and risk management protocols and adopt a process for carrying out audit of cases concerning safeguarding.

Each partner organisation should ensure its staff and volunteers at all levels have access to relevant information and training and have the necessary knowledge and skills to enable them to fulfil their individual roles in relation to safeguarding work. All personnel within partner agencies should know who they can contact to report concerns of abuse or neglect, including how to access and follow whistleblowing protocols. Regular supervision of staff and volunteers should address safeguarding concerns and identify related training needs.