Agenda item

The Director of Adult Social Care and Safeguarding submits a cover report which accompanies the Leicester Safeguarding Adult Board (LSAB) Annual Report for 2014/15. The Adult Social Care Scrutiny Commission is recommended to:

1.    Note the LSAB arrangements in place to oversee safeguarding activity in Leicester;

2.    Note the content of the Annual Report; and

3.    Make any observations to the LSAB as a partnership or to ASC specifically regarding the delivery of safeguarding work.

Dr David Jones, Independent Chair of the Leicester Safeguarding Adults Board (LSAB) presented the Board’s Annual Report for 2014-15. Dr Jones explained that the Care Act 2014 had required Safeguarding Adult Boards to be established as a statutory requirement and it was also a statutory requirement for the Board to produce an annual report.

Dr Jones explained that because of the reductions in budgets, there would be an impact on middle and senior managers and that this would create pressures in maintaining partnerships. Members heard that Dr Jones was also Chair of the Leicester Children’s Safeguarding Board, and the responsibilities on this Board had taken up more of his time following a recent Ofsted inspection. Dr Jones stated that he would be shortly standing down as Chair of the Boards and there was an intention to appoint different Chairs for each of the Boards.

Members considered the report and raised the following queries and comments.

Dr Jones was asked whether any lessons had been learned from the recent Children’s Ofsted report that could also be applied to Adults Social Care.

Dr Jones responded that the central issue was in getting a framework of understanding as to how well services were delivered.  In order to do this, it was necessary to have a comprehensive set of statistics, qualitative information and analysis.  This challenge had been identified in the Ofsted report and it also applied to Adult Social Care across the country, not just in Leicester. A robust response to this was being developed.

A member referred to Dr Jones’ concern about the budgetary cuts and its impact on senior and middle management and the subsequent pressure in maintain partnerships. The Leicester Adults Safeguarding Board had been established before the Care Act made it a statutory requirement, and she questioned whether the extra time that the Board had been established had been helpful in embedding structures to maintain those partnerships.

Dr Jones responded that there had been a dedicated commitment to the Board, but all the agencies reported that it was getting harder to find the time to continue with that commitment.  A certain level of engagement was required and if the number of people available to do this was reduced, there was a risk to that level being engaged. He suggested that this was something that the Commission might want to monitor.

A Member referred to Strategic Priority Area 3, Participation and Involvement and questioned what had been learned from the partners working jointly in a whole family approach.

Members were informed that in respect of family working, it was always a challenge for front line staff to be aware of the needs of others in the households. While focussing on the person with the primary needs, the needs of others in the family could be overlooked. There may be, for example, a young carer in that family. He stated that research showed that these other members of the family were not always identified as well as they should be.  However, the key to this was communication, in order to obtain an overall picture of the whole family situation and to ascertain any risks and what support might be needed.

A Member referred to the issues and challenges for 2015 / 16 which stated that one of the areas identified in the report for further development was to strengthen the participation and involvement of service users in strategic planning and the work of the LSAB.  Dr Jones expanded on this and explained that it was important to listen to service users and learn about their experiences. For adults, the situation was complex in that they may choose to live in a situation that presented some risks, but this was their right and they needed to be listened to. Dr Jones added that this was something that the partners were working on, but he felt that there was a need to engage more.   The Director for Adult Social Care and Safeguarding commented that it was still early days but their approach to the strategy had been shaped by their engagement with service users and by listening to their experiences.

The Vice Chair referred to the findings of the completed safeguarding referrals in para 5.8 of the report and stated that there was an inaccuracy in the calculations because the figures did not add up. The Director stated that she would look at this and confirm the correct figures to Members.

Members considered the statistics relating to safeguarding referrals received according to ethnic groups and noted that 73% came from White / British Groups compared to 22% from Asian or Asian British Groups. Dr Jones explained that the statistics were crude but enabled them to ask the questions as to how safeguarding was operating across the city; for example were all communities being met? He also expressed concerns about the rhetoric relating to people with disabilities as sometimes people on benefits were deemed to be scroungers. He believed that there was a need to be alert and to help raise awareness as to what help was available.

The Deputy City Mayor commented that there might be a way of producing a more robust comparison around ethnicity. He also suggested that it would be helpful to look at different patterns in different settings, such as in people’s own homes and residential settings.

There was some discussion around Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) as detailed in para 5.9 of the report. It was noted that that there were 221 new referrals waiting allocation. Concerns were expressed that the number was high and that the people awaiting referral were vulnerable. The Director explained that this figure did not relate to people who had been reported as being abused. The ruling in the cases of P v Cheshire West had widened the criteria for someone who could potentially be subject to a Deprivation of Liberty. This had resulted in a significant increase in numbers of referrals and in response the council had invested in resources and increased the number of people to deal with those referrals. A triage system had been introduced and they were also working with care home providers, as following on from the Cheshire ruling, some care homes had referred every one of their residents.

The Chair commented that she believed that carers were not valued enough. She also suggested that it would be useful when delivering training sessions to show examples of poor care and how care could be delivered better. The school where she was a governor had a monitoring system where staff could video themselves and watch it later as a training exercise to see if there were areas of their performance which they could improve upon. The Chair wondered whether the LSAB had considered a similar strategy.

Members questioned whether there were any safeguarding issues that needed to be addressed. Dr Jones responded that they were looking at service user involvement and there was a need to keep a focus on this. There was also a need to understand performance across the city and of being aware of how well the key services and partners were working together.

In relation to a concern about reaching diverse communities, the Deputy City Mayor stated that it was important to make sure that people of all communities knew what to do and what help was available. Adult safeguarding was a relatively new initiative and because of language and cultural differences there was a broader challenge in raising awareness. The Director added that they were working across the board to include all communities, including the Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual and Transgender communities.

The Chair extended her thanks to Dr Jones for his contribution to the LSAB over the past six years adding that the work he had carried out was of great importance. The Deputy City Mayor concurred with the Chair and also thanked Dr Jones for his commitment to the LSAB.

RESOLVED:

                        that the Commission

1)     note the Leicester Safeguarding Adult Board’s arrangements that are in place to oversee safeguarding activity in Leicester;

2)     note the content of the Annual Report;

3)    request clarification of the numbers detailed in para 5.8 of the report relating to the findings of completed safeguarding referrals;

4)       request that future reports have more sophisticated data, particularly around ethnic groups.