About the Plymouth Safeguarding Adults Partnership
Each local authority must set up and maintain a Safeguarding Adults Board (SAB). In Plymouth, we call it the Plymouth Safeguarding Adult Partnership (PSAP). The main objective is to ensure that local safeguarding arrangements and partner agencies act to help and protect adults in Plymouth.
The SAB has a strategic role that is greater than the sum of the operational duties of the core partners. It oversees and leads adult safeguarding across the locality and will be interested in a range of matters that contribute to the prevention of abuse and neglect. These will include the safety of patients in its local health services and the quality of local care and support services.
The SAB needs information on safeguarding activity in all providers of health and social care in its locality. It is important that SAB partners feel able to challenge each other and other organisations where it believes that their actions or inactions are increasing the risk of abuse or neglect; this will include commissioners, as well as providers of services.
The SAB can be an important source of advice and assistance, for example in helping others improve their safeguarding mechanisms. It is important that the SAB has effective links with other key partnerships in the locality and share relevant information and work plans. They should cooperate to reduce duplication and maximise efficiency, particularly as objectives and membership are likely to overlap.
A SAB has 3 core duties:
- It must publish a strategic plan for each financial year that sets how it will meet its main objective and what the members will do to achieve this. The plan must be developed with local community involvement, and the SAB must consult the local Healthwatch organisation. The plan should be evidence based and make use of all available evidence and intelligence from partners to form and develop its plan
- It must publish an annual report detailing what the SAB has done during the year to achieve its main objectives and implement its strategic plan, and what each member has done to implement the strategy as well as detailing the findings of any safeguarding adults reviews and subsequent action
- It must conduct any Safeguarding Adult Reviews in accordance with Section 44 of the Act.
Safeguarding requires joint work between partners in order to create an effective framework of arrangements between agencies. Local authorities and their relevant partners must work together as set out in the Care Act 2014 and in doing so must, where appropriate, also consider the wishes and desired outcomes of the adult on whose behalf they are working.
Annual Reports
Published Plymouth Safeguarding Adult Partnership annual reports.
Each year the Plymouth Safeguarding Adult Partnership (PSAP), must publish an annual report, clearly stating what both the PSAP and its members have done to carry out and deliver the objectives and other content of its strategic plan.
Safeguarding Adult Reviews
The Plymouth Safeguarding Adult Partnership must arrange a Safeguarding Adult Review (SAR) when an adult in its area dies as a result of abuse or neglect, whether known or suspected, and there is concern that partner agencies could have worked more effectively to protect the adult. The primary aim is to promote effective learning and improvement to prevent future deaths or serious harm from occurring again.