Alleged abuse of residents in a London care home  

Holly Bridden, RadcliffesLeBrasseur, talks about the potential consequences to care providers of a criminal investigation.

Making Safeguarding Personal  

Tim Dallinger talks about the Making Safeguarding Personal outcomes framework and how this can help care providers reflect on the outcomes of a safeguarding investigation.

Safeguarding adults update  

Martin Hodgson looks at two recent reports on safeguarding adults and the implications for social care providers.

Free article: The CQC's role in safeguarding adults  

Martin Hodgson looks at the CQC’s new guidance on safeguarding.

Free article: Demystifying safeguarding: has the playing field levelled?  

Jenny Wilde looks at changes to safeguarding adults under the Care Act 2014.

Free article: A closer look at the duty of candour  

Martin Hodson examines what the duty of candour means for adult social care providers.

Safeguarding and the new inspection regime  

Sheila Reynolds gives an overview of how the CQC will be looking at safeguarding under the new inspection regime.

Free article: Falls  

This article looks at how care providers can best protect their service users by minimising the risk of falls and putting suitable falls prevention strategies in place.

Transforming care – the final report on Winterbourne View  

Martin Hodgson highlights the key findings in the final report on Winterbourne View.

Whistleblowing  

Martin Hodgson looks at how social care organisations can protect whistleblowers and expose malpractice.

Safeguarding vulnerable adults from financial abuse  

How recognising some common indicators of financial abuse and implementing preventative measures may help you stamp out this shocking practice.

Policy – Missing service users (care homes nursing homes)  

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Checklist – Safeguarding and safety (domiciliary care, care homes, hospitals and hospices)  

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Training Q&A - Safeguarding (questions and answers)  

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Training Q&A - Safeguarding: questions (all providers)  

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Checklist - Responsibilities for safeguarding and safety (all providers)  

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Policy - Service user equal opportunities (care homes and nursing homes)  

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Policy - Service user equal opportunities (domicilliary care)  

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Form - Audit for compliance with fundamental standard Regulation 13: Safeguarding service users from abuse  

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Form - Audit for compliance with fundamental standard Regulation 12: Safe care and treatment  

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Spreadsheet - Safeguarding referrals analysis (all providers)  

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Form – Safeguarding referrals analysis  

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Policy - Deprivation of liberty safeguards  

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Form - Safeguarding adults competency assessment action plan (all providers)  

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Form - Safeguarding adults competency assessment (all providers)  

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Factsheet - Safeguarding adults: multi-agency guidance  

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Policy - Confidentiality  

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Form - Visitors log  

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Policy - Visitors  

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Policy - Safeguarding adults and preventing abuse  

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Checklist - Evidence checklist for safeguarding and safety  

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Policy - Whistleblowing  

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Q. With the increasing use of digital records, how do we retain evidence that we have undertaken Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks on our staff?  

A. The CQC guidance on DBS checks was last updated in October 2019. The guidance says that care providers do not need to retain original DBS certificates for the purposes of inspection. In fact, the CQC has an agreement that, for social care services, the top third of the DBS certificate can be retained for 12 months or until inspectors have seen it. Keeping this part of the certificate is evidence that a certificate has been obtained, and this must be destroyed after the CQC has seen it.

Q. We recently had a case in our care home where a service user’s spouse wanted to remove them from the care home as they felt that they would be safer in the family home during the COVID-19 pandemic.  

Our staff felt that the service user would be at risk if they went home. The service user’s spouse complained to the local authority and this resulted in a safeguarding referral being made about our care home. How could we have resolved this matter sooner?

A. This comes down to your initial assessment process. In this, you should have identified whether the service user had made a Lasting Power of Attorney for Health and Welfare. This would have set out who could make decisions of this type on behalf of the service user. If the service user had mental capacity at the time that their spouse wanted to take them home, then they should have been supported to make their own decision about this.

Q. We have been told that our policy and procedure on prevention of abuse should now be called a safeguarding policy and procedure. Is this true, and why is this?  

A. Referring to this area as ‘safeguarding’ will comply with legislation and best practice.