Safeguarding Toolkit for Adult Care Providers Standard 1

NICE guidance states that care homes (the guidance can be applied to supported living and domiciliary care provision) have a statutory requirement to establish a designated safeguarding lead. This may be the registered manager for the service or someone with delegated responsibility for safeguarding within the service. It is paramount that each care provider makes is clear who has responsibility for the different aspects of safeguarding within the service.

Safeguarding leads should have had training in safeguarding and should have the relevant skills and competencies to ensure the safety and protection of residents, in line with Care Quality Commission guidance.

Whilst it is recognised that some homes providers will emphasise the Safeguarding Lead’s role as the key person to report safeguarding concerns it should however be noted that safeguarding is everybody’s business, and all staff should know how to refer when abuse or neglect is suspected or there are concerns that an individual is at risk.

All care providers need to ensure that all staff know who the safeguarding lead is, what they do as well as how and when to contact them.

All Adult Safeguarding, including safeguarding in care settings, is underpinned by the Care Act 2014. The core legal duty for adult safeguarding is found in section 42 of the Care Act 2014 (legislation.gov.uk).

NICE Guidance, published in February 2021, aimed to increase awareness of safeguarding amongst staff working with adults in care homes and ensure any concerns are reported appropriately.

Safeguarding champions should be staff already working within the service, with good knowledge of safeguarding policy and procedure. Their role is to help ensure that procedures are followed and are available for advice and discussion.

They are involved in developing the reflective learning within the service to improve best practice in preventing abuse and neglect. Champions may also offer staff practical and emotional support particularly for those worried about the impact of raising a safeguarding concern.

Giving staff an opportunity for open conversation about safeguarding; role-modelling best practice which in turns gives others the confidence to do the same. They are not a replacement or alternative to the safeguarding lead.

Your Safeguarding Annual report may highlight:

• How many safeguarding concerns you have received in the year.
• You should compare the amount received from the previous year. Understanding your finding help you to reflect on what improvements have been made and any challenges you face as a service.
• Identifying the type of abuse and neglect is helpful to establish if any further work can be done in the highlighted area.
• You should consider demographics, to see if there is a consistent picture across the categories.
  • Age range
  • Ethnicity/culture
  • Gender
• Analysing the source of the referrals, where the risk originated from, this could be from a range of sources from internal staff, primary health professionals, those using the service and their families, fire and rescue and to other outside agencies.
• An illustration of the percentage of safeguarding concerns which subsequently become enquires under S42 Care Act 2014.
• Analysis of appropriateness and quality of referrals
• Analysis of Making Safeguarding Personal. Did referrals capture the voice of the individual(s) and ensure their wishes and views were known – was every effort made to understand what outcomes the individual wanted to achieve? Did the outcome meet the expressed wishes of the individual(s)?
• Source of risk and areas of improvement and learning to mitigate risk.
• Setting priories for the following year to address area such as:
  • Embrace a culture of reflective practice and learning
  • Improving on communication
  • Developing training and prevention
  • Assurance of staff’s safeguarding practice and awareness

NICE Guidance 189 notes that care homes and care providers should have systems in place to track and monitor incidents, accidents, disciplinary action, complaints and safeguarding concerns, to identify patterns of potential harm.

A suggested template to use to track your incidences and monitor themes and highlight learning is linked below.

Safeguarding Toolkit Incident Tracker Template [xlsx] 13KB

Registered providers must notify us about certain changes, events and incidents that affect their service or the people who use it.

A safeguarding statement should make it clear what your service will do to keep people with care and support needs safe. The Care Act 2014 defines this as anyone over the age of 18 who:

• has needs for care or support (whether or not the authority is meeting any of those needs;
• is experiencing, or is at risk of, abuse or neglect; and
• as a result of those needs is unable to protect themself against the abuse or neglect or the risk of it.

Certain commercial organisations must publish an annual statement setting out the steps they take to prevent modern slavery in their business and their supply chains. This is a requirement under section 54 (Transparency in Supply Chains) of the Modern Slavery Act 2015.

Modern slavery is a type of abuse that includes human trafficking, forced labour and domestic servitude. Traffickers will use force, deception or coercion to trap individuals into a life of servitude or abuse and exploit them for criminal gain. The Surrey Safeguarding Adult Board website has more information on Modern Slavery. Care providers should ensure that they have robust recruiting standards to be sure staff are not victims of slavery when recruiting from e.g. agencies or from overseas.

Following the transparency in supply chains consultation, the Government will introduce legislation to bring in measures to strengthen section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015. In the meantime, you should continue to meet the current legal requirements for reporting set out on this page.

Who needs to publish a statement?

A commercial organisation is required to publish a modern slavery statement if all the following criteria apply:

• it is a ‘body corporate’ or a partnership, wherever incorporated or formed
• it carries on a business, or part of a business, in the UK
• it supplies goods or services
• it has an annual turnover of £36 million or more

Organisations are responsible for determining whether the legislation applies to them. You may wish to seek legal advice to decide if they need to produce a modern slavery statement. Even of the criteria are not met, you can still produce a statement to demonstrate best practice.

If the organisation has taken no steps to deal with modern slavery risks, a statement must still be published.

The Home Office’s statutory guidance recommends that the following six areas are covered in the statement:

1. Organisation structure and supply chains
2. Policies in relation to slavery and human trafficking
3. Due diligence processes
4. Risk assessment and management
5. Key performance indicators to measure effectiveness of steps being taken
6. Training on modern slavery and trafficking

Modern Slavery – Right Here, Right Now

Detective Chief Inspector Kerry Loveless is the Surrey Police and South-East regional lead for Modern Slavery. This is what she has to say about Modern Slavery in Surrey.

Modern Slavery is present on all of our doorsteps. Because it can often be a hidden crime – less obvious than other crime types – people often don’t realise that it is happening in their communities.

But there is not one part of Surrey that does not experience the exploitation of people as a commodity, so it is vital that communities keep their eyes and ears open for the signs that something is wrong.

A recently emerging industry where Modern Slavery is apparent in Surrey and nationally is the private care sector. Carers are recruited from outside the UK and promised safety and a good salary. In reality they are exploited in terms of hours they are made to work and the amount of money that is taken from them by their exploiters. Sadly, it is likely that we will see the private care sector experience more and more exploitation. It is all of our responsibility to call out exploitation and ensure conditions for exploiters to operate in are as hostile as possible. 

Signs to be aware of:

• Carer is likely to be from an African nation and newly working in the UK
• Carer appears tired or in poor health
• Carer has no apparent means of transport to move between clients/no obvious local transport links to facilitate this
• Carer is not keen to engage in conversation
• Carer appears fearful or unhappy

How to engage with carers

If you are comfortable to engage with a carer and they are willing to speak to you, some things you may want to find out are:

• What is their typical working day like – duration, number of clients? Do they get days off?
• How do they travel between clients?
• What sort of accommodation do they live in and who with?
• Are they sending money back home to support others? 
• Do they have access to their passport or other ID documents?
• Is the job what they expected it to be and if not in what way does it differ to what was agreed?

If the responses to any of these enquiries cause you concern, you can contact a number of organisations to help you.

What to do if you are concerned

• Contact Surrey Police – 999 if an emergency or 101 if not urgent
• Contact the Modern Slavery Helpline (0800 121700) – please give as much information as possible in terms of people, locations and what you are concerned about
• Crime-Stoppers (0800 555111) – this is anonymous reporting which means we have no way of getting in touch with you to clarify any information, so please give as much detail as possible to enable us to take action.
• If you consider it appropriate advise your Safeguarding Officer.

Common Methods of Exploitation in the Care Sector

• Carers are recruited from outside the UK and sponsored to work here – they are usually from African nations.
• On arrival the accommodation they are given is provided by the exploiter and the cost of it taken at source from their earnings.
• They are made to work excessive hours daily and without days off. If they complain they are threatened with having their sponsorship withdrawn and being deported.
• They are charged for “legal fees”, often up to £15,000, which are deducted at source. It is unclear what the nature of these fees are.
• They are not provided with access to transport to travel between their clients. If they are provided with transport, they are charged for this and it is deducted from their salary at source.
• Some victims have advised that there are large distances between clients and they have been told by their exploiters to “run” between them if no public transport is available. 
• Due to all of the deductions, victims are being paid only a small fraction of what was agreed when they were recruited.
• Some victims report being verbally and physically abused by their exploiters, or their shifts taken away/ cut if they complain about working conditions, causing them even greater financial difficulty.

If we all work together we can bring this form of slavery to an end – thank you for your support.