Agenda item

The Local Safeguarding Adults Board (LSAB) has produced an Annual Report which outlines the work its multi-agency partners carried out during 2012-2013 and includes the updates Business Plan. The report (including the business plan) requires the approval of the Health and Wellbeing Board.

The Board is asked to agree the Annual Report and Business Plan.

The Chair informed the meeting that Lesley Hutchinson (Head of Safeguarding Adults, Assurance and Personalisation), who is the report author, gave her apology for this meeting and invited Jane Shayler (Deputy Director for Adult Care, Health and Housing Strategy and Commissioning) to introduce the report.

The Chair welcomed the report and invited the Board to place on record its thanks to Lesley Hutchinson and her team who worked really hard during 2012-13.  The report has been signed off by the Local Safeguarding Adults Board (LSAB) and now it is before Health and Wellbeing Board for approval.  The LSAB is incredibly effective board working really hard with multi-agency partners to safeguard and protect vulnerable adults.

Members of the Board agreed with the Chair to place on record their thanks to Lesley Hutchinson and her team. 

Bruce Laurence felt that report is quite detailed and there should be a summary at the beginning of the report focusing on the key issues and highlights as it was hard to extract key issues.

Bruce Laurence asked how we are going to assure that Winterbourne View Hospital events will not happen in Bath & North East Somerset.

Jane Shayler responded that, in her view, part of it is about the awareness that unfortunate events at Winterbourne View happened.  A specific training is provided to all organisations with the clear message that it is not in order to allow this to happen again and every individual has responsibility to make their concerns known.  The aim is to never-ever have Winterbourne View events in our area but it is important not to let complacency to slip in so there is a need for on-going raise of awareness and training in order to have tight grip on procedures.  Procedures are really important – every single case, where time scales were not met, needs to be understood.  Jane Shayler also said that we need to be vigilant for each and every case.

The Chair added that he, in his role of Cabinet Member for Wellbeing, and Wellbeing Scrutiny Panel will be receiving bi-monthly performance report on care homes.

Bruce Laurence asked how we get input from people in the care homes, the actual residents and/or their carers/relatives to make sure that anything that is questionable get spotted early.

Jane Shayler responded that part of it is about public awareness and part is about specific training for Ward Councillors, as they have quite important role in this matter.  Part of the value of integrated commissioning arrangement is that not only Lesley Hutchinson and her team meet on monthly basis with the Care Quality Commission (CQC), but also the CCG’s Director of Nursing meets with the CQC that enables to share of information.  That would include District Nurses who might go into care homes and spot something they don’t think it is right or GPs, relatives, friends, etc.  This is all in addition to harder evidence, referrals, and it is all about sharing information.  If there are concerns about particular home (because of number of concerns from different places) then there is a process in place where by somebody with considerable experience and knowledge on what good social care service looks like goes along with someone of nursing background and they do joint visit and develop joint action plan, if appropriate.  

Ashley Ayre commented that when the work was done internally, to establish the departmental structure with the CCG, there was a specific question on how to respond to a “Winterbourne View” event in this area.  Senior officers spent couple of sessions working on this.  The key is information sharing across the frontline service delivery, commissioning and safeguarding functions about providers and any concerns or anomalies.  Ashley Ayre also welcomed a need for executive summary of the report.

Dr Ian Orpen also welcomed a suggestion for executive summary of the report considering that there is a lot of detail in this high volume report which could be missed.  Dr Orpen also said that higher number of referrals is not necessarily bad thing.  It could mean that the awareness is higher and also the way how information is shared and collected now.  Dr Orpen concluded by saying that safeguarding issue is not confined to care homes only.  The reception staff at GP surgeries also has significant role in spotting if something is not right.

It was RESOLVED to agree the Local Safeguarding Adults Board Annual Report and Business Plan.