Issue - meetings

The Board gave consideration to the Oldham Safeguarding Adults Board (OSAB) 2019/20 Annual Report and priorities for 2020/21, the OSAB being a statutory partnership set up to safeguard adults at risk of experiencing abuse, neglect or exploitation and which had duties to produce a Strategic Plan; to publish an Annual Report; and to undertake a Safeguarding Adult Review (SAR) where it believes someone has experienced harm as a result of abuse, neglect or exploitation.

Over the past year the OSAB had introduced a series of measures designed to remodel adult safeguarding arrangements across Oldham, looking to strengthen and improve multi-agency working through a combination of new safeguarding structures, greater alignment with the Children’s Safeguarding Partnership (CSP) and integrating safeguarding structures across Community Health and Social Care.  The 2019/20 Annual Report was the first under these new arrangements and reflected the OSAB’s ambition to develop a more outward facing role to ensure that there is ‘no wrong door’ to reporting safeguarding concerns and that the work of the OSAB is publicly accountable. 

The Annual Report provided information on the number and type of safeguarding concerns reported during 2019/20, setting out the actions taken to ensure that lessons learnt from the SARs have be used to change front line practice and improve the way services work.  The Board’s specific attention was drawn to the following matters from the 2019/20 period -

·         1,580 safeguarding referrals were made and, of these, 556 became the subject of a formal safeguarding Enquiry. The number of referrals had almost doubled in the last two years, possibly due to a combination of improvements in data recording and campaigns encouraging people to report safeguarding concerns;

·         1,543 safeguarding referrals and enquiries were dealt with and closed, an increase over the 960 in the previous year.  Of the cases closed, 48% were complex cases involving people who lacked capacity to make their own decisions. The breakdown by sex, age and ethnicity suggested that White British women aged between 18 and 64 were more likely to be the subject of a reported safeguarding concern compared to any other group;

·         an increase in the number of safeguarding concerns relating to self-neglect, acts of omission and domestic abuse had been seen.  Some of the increase in domestic abuse cases coincided with the start of the Covid-19 lockdown where those living with an abusive partner may have experienced an escalation in abuse, coupled with restricted access to community contacts and professional support; and

·         five SARs had been conducted, compared to two in 2018/19. In each case, the OASB adopted the recommendations of the independent reviewer and overseen changes designed to prevent similar cases happening again. These changes had also been informed by ‘Making Safeguarding Personal’ conversations with local people who had first hand experience of safeguarding issues.

For 2020/21, the ambitions for Oldham’s new safeguarding arrangements included an effective ‘all age’ safeguarding offer and progress had been made over the past year to align the work of the OSAB with the SCP.  The ongoing impact  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6