The Safeguarding Adults Board (SAB) has a statutory duty under the Care Act 2014 to produce an annual report detailing what the SAB has done during the year to achieve its main objectives and implement its strategic plan. It should record what each member agency has done to implement the strategy as well as detailing the findings of any Safeguarding Adults Reviews and subsequent action.

The Committee received a report from the Independent Chair of the   Local Safeguarding Adults Board (SAB) which has a statutory duty under the Care Act 2014 to produce an annual report detailing what the SAB has done during the year to achieve its main objectives and implement its strategic plan. In addition, what each member agency has done to implement the strategy as well as detailing the findings of any Safeguarding Adults Reviews and subsequent action.

The report format the Committee was advised has been prepared within the Children’s Services and Health, Adults and Community Services Policy, Programmes and Community Insight Team alongside the preparation of the Local Safeguarding Children Board Report.  This it was noted helps to ensure consistency in terms of approach, content, structure and quality.

The questions and comments from Members on this report may be summarised as follows:

The Committee:

• Welcomed the report and stated that it would be interested to know what is in place to facilitate the transition from children to young adults;
• Noted that there is a Transition Panel that will look at the safe guarding plans to ensure they are as robust as they can be; issues can be monitored and lessons learned;
• Noted more work is required e.g. supporting the service users voice;
• Noted that the Borough has some very active housing providers and have good representation from those partners on the relevant bodies;
• Noted that it is a top priority to improve best practice on a multi-agency basis through the targeted learning of staff and undertaking a random audit of cases as a means of quality assurance across safeguarding to learning; highlight and to focus the Councils and SABs energies;
• Indicated that it wished to see who was involved in the Transition Panel and wanted to hear from some of those who have gone through this process;
• Noted that the Corporate Director participates actively in the scrutiny of the work being undertaken;
• Queried whether key KPIs around adult health are sufficiently linked to safeguarding;
• Noted that the Council wished there to be a real difference in the processes being used and that LBTH is learning and developing the service that it delivers;
• Noted with regard to what is being done to ensure a consistency in the standard of care when an agency provider changes. It was also noted that LBTH is at the end of a re-procurement of home care and wants to move to an ethical based care model that is based on locality;
• Noted that LBTH have raised issues with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) where there are areas of concern and LBTH has its own regulation of monitoring of care to drive up standards in care and much time and effort has been expended on this.

As a result of discussions on the report the Chair Moved and it was:-

RESOLVED

The Committee agreed to formally note the annual report for the local Safeguarding Adults Board for 2016/17.