Agenda item

To consider the annual report of the Haringey Safeguarding Adults Board for 2019/20.

Dr Adi Cooper, Independent Chair of the Haringey Adult Safeguarding Board, introduced the Board’s Annual Report for 2019/20 which is one of the Board statutory duties. Dr Cooper said that the Board uses this report as an opportunity to promote awareness of safeguarding adults. The core purpose of the report was to demonstrate the progress that had been made against the plans that had been set by the Board the previous year through the work of the sub-groups and partnerships. The report also provided details of the Board’s statutory responsibility for Adult Safeguarding Reviews and, although no reviews were published in 2019/20, there was still significant activity in this area with cases and thematic areas being put forward to be examined.

Due to the Covid pandemic, the report was slightly scaled down compared to previous years because some agency partners were responding to the pandemic and were unable to contribute to the report in the way that they normally would. The Board had set up a Covid task and finish group which had been meeting monthly and monitoring the impact of Covid and the response of partner agencies to ensure that core safeguarding duties have been met.

Dr Cooper then responded to questions from the Panel:

• Cllr da Costa asked about the increase in Section 42 Enquiries by 17% overall with a significant rise in the home as an abuse type as set out in the report. Dr Cooper said that the increase in Section 42s was good news as Haringey had been low compared to the average so her interpretation of this was an improvement in practice. The increase in the proportion of abuse in the home this was reflected nationally, including because more people were being cared for in their own homes, more abuse in the home was now being reported and also there was potentially improved care standards in institutional settings.
• Cllr Brabazon asked about the processes used to monitor systemic change following the recommendations of a Safeguarding Adults Review (SAR). Dr Cooper said that the learning from the SARs aim to shift practice. All of the recommendations from the SARs have actions against them, some of which are for individual agencies and others for multiple agencies. These actions are all monitored, though it can be difficult to demonstrate long term impact. The recommendations from the SAR into the death of “Ms Taylor” in a fire had been responded to on aspects such as training and fire safety. There were certain areas of poor practice, including poor communication, that come up regularly in SARs so there was a significant challenge in ensuring that the recommendations do lead to real change in the interface between agencies. A workshop had been held earlier in the year to bring various agencies together to discuss this. However, a suitable mechanism which assesses whether improvements have been successfully embedded had not yet been established so this remained an ongoing objective though progress towards this had unfortunately been impacted by Covid.
• In response to a point from Cllr Connor about ensuring that the Making Safeguarding Personal initiative was fully embedded, Dr Cooper pointed to page 28 of the report which showed a significant improvement in the proportion of people who are asked what their outcomes are and whether these were then met.
• Cllr Connor asked about an action on joint Children’s and Adults Social Services partnership working, Dr Cooper said that this cross-cutting work had been continuing with a joint meeting earlier in the year and an extensive report back. It had been affected by Covid, but progress had been made and further details would be provided in the following year’s report.
• Cllr Connor asked for further details on why partner agencies had not contributed towards the report and whether this meant that some safeguarding actions had not been taken. Dr Cooper said that she was confident that partners were meeting safeguarding responsibilities and that the issue had been more that the reports for the annual review were required in April /May at a time when agencies were fully occupied with responding to Covid.