Agenda item

Oldham Safeguarding Adults Board: 2020/21 Annual Report and Strategic Plan 2021-2024

The Health and Wellbeing Board is requested to consider and comment on the Oldham Safeguarding Adults Board 2019/20 Annual Report and 2021-24 Strategic Plan.

 

Minutes:

Consideration was given to the Oldham Safeguarding Annual Report 2020/21 and the 2021-24 Strategic Plan.  The Board was reminded that the Oldham Adult Safeguarding Board (OSAB) was a statutory partnership set up to safeguarding adults at risk of experiencing abuse, neglect, or exploitation.  As part of the statutory duties, the Board was required to produce an Annual Report setting out future ambitions and actions to help keep people safe in Oldham.

 

The Board was advised that, during the previous eighteen months, the OSAB had introduced a series of measures designed to remodel adult safeguarding arrangements across Oldham. The new arrangements were designed to strengthen and improve multi-agency working through a combination of new safeguarding structures, greater alignment with the Children’s Safeguarding Partnership and integrated safeguarding structures across Community Health and Social Care.

 

The Board was reminded that the role of the OSAB was to assure itself that organisations and agencies across Oldham were working together to protect and enable adults to live safely. This meant helping people to make decisions about the risks they faced in their own lives as well as protecting those who lacked the capacity to make these decisions.

 

The Board was advised that the three main statutory duties of the OSAB were to:

·         Produce a Strategic Plan setting out the changes the Board wanted to achieve and how organisations would work together.

·         Publish an Annual Report setting out safeguarding concerns it had dealt with in the last year as well as plans to keep people safe in the future.

·         Undertake a Safeguarding Adult Review in line with Section 44 of the Care Act where it believed someone had experienced harm as a result of abuse, neglect or exploitation.

 

The Annual Report provided information on the number and type of safeguarding concerns reported in Oldham, along with actions taken to adopt learning from the Safeguarding Adult Reviews. Central to this had been the collection and sharing of first-hand experiences by adults ‘at risk’ and family members who had experience of safeguarding issues and services in Oldham.

 

It was reported that a total of 2038 safeguarding referrals had been made in 2020/21.  Of these, 408 had become the subject of a formal safeguarding enquiry. Data had shown that the number of referrals had doubled in the previous two years. The report acknowledged that this may be due to a combination of improvements in the recording data, Covid-19 campaigns designed to encourage people to report safeguarding concerns and lockdown restrictions which had seen an increase in reports of domestic and financial abuse. Whilst the number of overall referrals had increased, the number of serious safeguarding enquires remained relatively consistent during the previous four years.

It was further reported that nine Safeguarding Adult Reviews had been completed in 2020/21, which was consistent with the previous year. The main types of abuse had been self-neglect, acts of omission and domestic abuse which could include psychological abuse, violence, physical abuse and financial abuse.

 

The Board was advised that the OSAB Strategic Plan had been shaped by the Government’s new legislative programme, learning from Covid-19 and the correlation between Oldham’s demographic profile and local safeguarding trends. Factors such as levels of poverty, the numbers of people living with mental health issues, homelessness and alcohol related deaths disproportionately impacted on adults with care and support needs and were key factors within Oldham’s Safeguarding Adults Reviews.

 

As a result of the above, the Strategy had set out a challenging programme of work, designed to prevent and reduce future safeguarding incidents and implement an effective ‘all age’ safeguarding offer.  This work would take place within far-reaching changes proposed in the Health and Care Bill, including the creation of Integrated Care Systems (ICSs), new legislative requirements within the Mental Health Act White Paper and the introduction of the Liberty Protection Safeguards. The strategy recognised that changes of this scale and complexity needed integration that looked beyond the NHS and social care, to fully involve the wider statutory, voluntary and community sectors as equal contributors.

 

It was reported that the strategy was designed to focus on action and the 2021/22 Annual Plan on a Page set out the Board’s work programme for the current year. The one-page summary was being actively promoted and shared across agencies to highlight the aims of the Board and promote the wide range of resources and information available through the Board’s website and fortnightly joint Children’s and Adults Safeguarding bulletins.

 

In terms of the evaluation of the strategy, it was noted that assurance relied on insight gained from Oldham’s multi-agency safeguarding data and quality assurance processes. However, during 2020/21, OSAB recognised that data sets used for the reporting of adult safeguarding incidents by partners, required improvement.

 

As such it was highlighted that prevalence data needed to consider wider data sets and for example to consider activity across primary care and GP practice.

The Board was advised that the above comments would be conveyed to the Safeguarding Board with a suggestion that the report be updated to reflect the above comments.

 

RESOLVED -  That the Safeguarding Adults Board 2019/20 Annual Report and 2021-24 Strategic Plan be approved, subject to the amendments in relation to prevalence data and benchmarking.

 

 

 

 

 

The Health and Wellbeing Board considered the Oldham Safeguarding Board’s Annual Report and Business Plans 2020/21 and Three-year Strategy April 20201-March 2024.

 

The report provided information on the types of Safeguarding concerns seen in Oldham during 2020/21 and set out the actions the Board had taken to keep people safe.  Details were also provided of the Safeguarding Adult Reviews undertaken and how the learning from these reviews had shaped and improved the way services work in Oldham.

 

The Board was advised that in 2019, community conversations had begun with Oldham residents and the plan had been for 2020/21, to build on these and set up the Oldham Safeguarding Voice Network.  Unfortunately, due to Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdown restrictions, people had not been able to meet as planned.  Alternatively, the Board had captured people’s view and personal stories (some of which were detailed in the report) through recorded interviews with individual and existing groups.  These interviews had formed the basis of the Board’s Practice Learning Events and had helped to change the way services work together and considered new solutions to help keep people safe.  The Board was further advised that it was hoped to set up the Network in 2021/22 and that this group would shape the work of Oldham Safeguarding Adults Board, lead awareness raising campaigns and shape the training provided to operational teams.

 

Also outlined in the report was a profile of abuse and neglect in Oldham detailing the numbers and types of safeguarding abuse recorded for Oldham resident in 2020/21.  This information had been compared to the numbers and types of safeguarding abuse from previous years to help identify changes and new types of safeguarding concerns that need to be addressed.  The comparison had also assisted in understanding the impact that the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown had on safeguarding referral in Oldham over the last year. 

 

The report acknowledged that some of the increase may be due to Covid-19 safeguarding campaigns designed to encourage people to report a concern or they may be due to lockdown which had seen an increase in reports of domestic abuse and financial abuse.  Whilst the number of overall referrals had increased, the number of serious safeguarding enquiries had remained consistent over the last four years. 

 

The report also outlined, the sex, age and ethnic groups of safeguarding referrals which demonstrated that of the 2038 referrals, 58% had related to woman and 41% to men.  In Oldham, women made up 51% of the total adult population, so the percentage of safeguarding cases per head of population 2020/21 were slightly higher for women than for men.  The breakdown by age group demonstrated that 50% of cases related to someone aged between 18 and 64 and 17% of cases related to someone aged over 85.  In 2020/21 the number of referrals had related to someone aged over 85 reduced by more than 50% compared to the previous year.  It was acknowledged that this may be due to the reduced visibility ad social isolation of older people because of Covid-19 lockdown restrictions.  Overall, the figures suggested that White British people aged between 18 and 64 were more likely to be the subject of a safeguarding enquiry in 2020/2, compared to any other group. 

 

During 2020/21, a total of 2531 safeguarding referrals and enquires were closed which was more than the 2038 safeguarding referrals received in the year.  This was due to a push by the Multi-Agency Safeguarding HUB (MASH) to increase the number of timely closure of referrals and enquires and includes the closure of outstanding cases form 2019/20.

 

Of the 2531 cases closed in 2020/21 41% were complex cases involving people who lacked capacity to make their own decisions.  A breakdown of types of abuse and where the abuse took place was also detailed within the report.  The most common form of neglect related to neglect and acts of omission.  These involved cases where a person responsible for the support of an adult at risk has failed to provide adequate care or essential such as medicines, nutrition, heating etc.

 

The Board was advised that some safeguarding investigations involved the reporting of more than one category of abuse and that during 2020/21 the category of sexual abuse had been added as a recording option for the first time.  Whilst lockdown restrictions had reduced the visibility of adults with care and support needs in setting such as hospitals, primary care and community settings there had been a greater scrutiny placed on care homes due to the impact and spread of the Covid-19 pandemic. 

 

Priorities for 2021/22 including the Three-year Strategy April 2021-March 2024 including strategic objectives were also outlined within the report.

 

Supporting documents: