Andrew Bickley
Independent Chair, Plymouth Safeguarding Adults Partnership
In my capacity as the Independent Chair of the Plymouth Safeguarding Adults Partnership (PSAP), I’m pleased to introduce the annual report of the Plymouth Safeguarding Adults Partnership for the year ending in April 2023.
During the year, all organisations began slowly adapting to new ways of post-lockdown working yet remained very much aware that the Covid19 virus continued to be prevalent in our communities. The pressures that had been stored in the system became evident during the last year. Primary and secondary health services, alongside adult social care, had been strained, and people across all organisations felt exhausted. I want to pay tribute to all staff, from statutory agencies as well as those in the voluntary, charity and community sectors, working to safeguard adults in the city of Plymouth for their dedication and hard work, despite the challenges they have, and continue, to face.
As you will see from the Board’s key achievements later in this report, our work within the adult safeguarding system has continued with rigour and commitment. We have a core responsibility to seek assurance that each part of the partnership and wider safeguarding system is working effectively. Assurance activity is at the heart of everything we do and remained a key focus for our work in 2022/23. Of relevance has been our ability to undertake independent audit work on safeguarding policies and practice, identified by the monitoring of performance data and trends. Our first audit in 2021 was on the factors and prevalence of self- neglect in Plymouth communities. This has been followed by an audit on how safeguarding issues are referred and managed in the partnership; this audit will be published later in 2023. Audit activity provides a valuable and rich insight on how partners can improve the ways that those with care and support needs can be protected from abuse, neglect or exploitation. This insight is essential to improve the way partner agencies respond to the unique needs of adult safeguarding in the city.
As recognised in many partnerships, a real challenge for any Safeguarding Adults Board is to ensure safeguarding services provided by agencies are accessible to all those people and their advocates who would benefit from them. Unfortunately, the language of safeguarding that captures our commitment to support and protect people from abuse neglect or exploitation can itself be confusing. For Safeguarding Adults Boards, the meaning of Safeguarding is set out in the Care Act 2014, but for many people across our city the term will just have an everyday meaning of support to be safe, well or protected. If English is not your first language, then you may find additional challenges, as there is no direct translation into many languages. If you use sign language, then the separate words 'safe' and 'guard' will need additional interpretation.
We continue to work with Living Options Devon to gain a better insight into how we connect and engage with our communities and better understand some of these and other issues. What we are determined to do is to work with and alongside communities to give people the knowledge and confidence to seek help for themselves or others. I recognise agencies working in the city need to improve the way they communicate and reach service users and their advocates, and this will remain an important aspect of our future work.
The safeguarding partnership has continued to adjust to new ways of working, creating multi-agency groups to coordinate and drive assurance activity, trying innovative ways to deliver learning as early as possible though our Safeguarding Adult Review (SAR) process, and by listening directly at each partnership meeting to frontline workers or their managers addressing the often complex and challenging needs of service users. For these workers to have direct access to decision makers and partnership leaders helps to develop more rounded and appropriate safeguarding responses and policies.
We always have more to do, but I am confident we are making progress. By working in partnership with a multi-agency focus, partners hope to build more connections, develop more resources, and reach more people to support them to live in safety free from abuse and neglect in Plymouth. The partnership will do all it can over the coming year to seek assurances and challenge where necessary to secure these outcomes.