Abstract
This article considers current adult safeguarding policy guidelines for England, which require local authorities to collect adult safeguarding data for the purposes of research and service development. It then moves on to report some of the findings from an evaluation of adult safeguarding in one English local authority, focussing on how the adult safeguarding database was populated from case records and how the resultant data was utilised. It found that, although the annual number of adult safeguarding alerts more than tripled between 2002 and 2008, this clear evidence of an increase in workload had not resulted in increased resource allocation. The evaluation further noted that only half of the designated ‘adult safeguarding managers’ who were interviewed were able to correctly define the meanings of the recommended terms under which adult safeguarding outcomes are recorded, i.e. ‘substantiated’, ‘not substantiated’ and ‘not determined’. Changes to the terminology used to record the outcomes of safeguarding investigations are proposed as one of a number of measures to enable the creation of valid and reliable information upon which to base future practice developments, including allocation of resources. Key
Highlights
This article considers current adult safeguarding policy guidelines for England, which require local authorities to collect adult safeguarding data for the purposes of research and service development
The interviews were semi-structured and each followed the same pattern of questions, starting by asking about the interviewees’ personal experience of safeguarding training and safeguarding work, moving on to discuss current safeguarding processes – including how cases were recorded on computer systems; interagency working; decisions about whether abuse allegations were substantiated; inputting of outcomes data onto the adult safeguarding database for monitoring purposes– and concluding with a discussion of the impact of safeguarding work on social workers
The use of monitoring data to manage resources Despite concerns about the reliability and consistency of information held within the adult safeguarding database, the one fact which was clearly evidenced was a substantial increase in the number of safeguarding alerts received by adult social care teams (300% increase in seven years)
Summary
This article considers current adult safeguarding policy guidelines for England, which require local authorities to collect adult safeguarding data for the purposes of research and service development. The interviews were semi-structured and each followed the same pattern of questions, starting by asking about the interviewees’ personal experience of safeguarding training and safeguarding work, moving on to discuss current safeguarding processes – including how cases were recorded on computer systems; interagency working; decisions about whether abuse allegations were substantiated; inputting of outcomes data onto the adult safeguarding database for monitoring purposes– and concluding with a discussion of the impact of safeguarding work on social workers.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
