NORTH YORKSHIRE SAFEGUARDING ADULTS BOARD ANNUAL REPORT 2020-21
CARE AND INDEPENDENCE OVERVIEW AND SCRUTINY COMMITTEE
2 December 2021
Summary:
1. This report introduces the Annual Report of the North Yorkshire Safeguarding Adults
Board (NYSAB) for the financial year 2020-21, and outlines the future areas for development by the Board.
The Annual Report is available on our website: https://safeguardingadults.co.uk/annual-reports
Background
2. The Care Act (2014) requires local authorities to set up a Safeguarding Adults Board (SAB)
The Act identifies that the Board must
· include the local authority, the NHS and the police, who should meet regularly to discuss and act upon local safeguarding issues;
· develop shared strategic plans for safeguarding, working with local people to decide how to protect adults with care and support needs in vulnerable situations;
· publish a strategic plan and report to the public annually on its progress, so that constituent Partnership organisations can ensure that they are working together in the best way.
2020-21– Key Messages
3. Unsurprisingly the majority of the Board’s work and that of its partner agencies over the 2020-21 period has focused on the response to the Covid pandemic. Whilst we appreciate the pressures the pandemic placed on our services, we still have a duty to safeguard adults across North Yorkshire. Therefore, the Board sought assurance from partner agencies via their statements as to what they did to keep adults safe during the pandemic. The statements from statutory partners can be found in the bogy of the annual report and responses from non-statutory partners are available on our website; the link to which is in our report.
4. We continue to work jointly with our partners within the North Yorkshire Safeguarding Children’s Partnership (NYSCP) and the Community Safety Partnership (CSP) to work on themes that are relevant to all three Boards/Partnerships such as Modern Slavery & Human Trafficking, County Lines, Suicide Awareness and Domestic Abuse to have a joined up approach and message to raise awareness.
5. As part of our collaborative working with the NYSCP and CSP we have developed a joint engagement and communication strategy to outline how we want to engage and communicate with people across North Yorkshire. We hope that by having a joint approach across the Board and Partnerships that the whole community will understand what abuse, exploitation, harm and neglect look like as well as the roles they play in keeping people safe and promoting welfare. Safeguarding is everybody’s business.The strategy along with its accompanying supplementary guide can be found here: https://safeguardingadults.co.uk/engagement-and-communication
6. We conducted a safeguarding adult review (SAR) in relation to ‘Anne’ and published the full report in February 2021. The report sets out 10 recommendations to the individual agencies involved and the NYSAB as a whole, all of which are accepted by the NYSAB in full and work is now underway to implement these recommendations. The full report can be found here: https://safeguardingadults.co.uk/SAR-Anne
7. During 2020-21, the North Yorkshire Safeguarding Adults Board has overseen the completion of two action plans. The first in relation to the lessons learned review for ‘Mrs S’ and the second for the safeguarding adult review in relation to ‘Ian’
Delivery reports for both are available here: https://safeguardingadults.co.uk/nysab-learning The reports explain changes made in response to these reviews including the introduction of new multi-agency policies for complaint management, improving Mental Capacity Act 2005 practice, and sharing information with other agencies.
8. We have commissioned a safeguarding adult review which we are undertaking with the North Yorkshire Safeguarding Children Partnership. The SAR will look specifically at the transition period from children’s to adult services, mental health involvement as well as the impact of adverse childhood experiences, self-harm and substance misuse. The report will be published in early 2022 and the findings will be included in the Annual Report for 2021-22
9. There was a reduction in the number of safeguarding concerns raised during 2020-21.
10. In keeping with Making Safeguarding Personal, 70% of people who expressed an outcome of the safeguarding process had their outcome fully met. This is 3% above the national average which is 67% in England.
11. We built on our existing joint working with safeguarding and community safety colleagues in North Yorkshire County Council and City of York Council through delivery of Safeguarding Week which took place in June 2020. Due to the pandemic the campaign took place virtually and we made use of online platforms to raise awareness in relation to key areas such as domestic abuse, keeping safe online and mental health. We also used the campaign to assure people that despite changes to service delivery across health and social care, safeguarding concerns should still be reported.
Strategic Priorities for 2021-2023
12. The strategic priorities are based on the six key principles outlined in the Care Act. The priorities detail how the Board wants to reflect these principles so that they can be applied locally.
The aims and objectives are set out in full within the annual report and are summarised below.
· Reconnect with communities in North Yorkshire to raise awareness and develop strategies to address and reduce risk of abuse
· Ensure multi-agency safeguarding policies and procedures are in line with best practice and meet the needs of older people and younger vulnerable people – now and in the future.
· Ensure a stronger partnership approach and accountability for the prevention of abuse.
· Ensure NYSAB is able to effectively adapt and respond to wider contextual changes affecting adult safeguarding.
13.These key themes for 2021 - 23 were agreed by the Board in June 2021. As per our statutory duty, we have since been published our strategic priorities on our website at https://safeguardingadults.co.uk/strategic-priorities
Dr Sue Proctor
Independent Chair, North Yorkshire SAB