Safeguarding

Safeguarding means enabling people to live their lives free from harm, abuse and neglect, and to have their health, wellbeing and human rights protected.

Those most at risk and in need of protection include:

• Children and young people.
• Adults whose circumstances may lead them to be vulnerable. Examples include those receiving care in their own home who have little or no contact with friends, family or the community; people with physical, sensory and mental impairments who do not have access to suitable support; people with learning disabilities who are not helped to live independently; their carers.
• Other adults made vulnerable by the situation they are in. Examples include child birth or when undergoing a medical procedure or examination.

Safeguarding is intrinsically linked with people's human rights. Human rights principles will drive and feature in all the Care Quality Commission's work. Our vision and values reflect that human rights approach. Our vision is of high quality health and social care which supports people to live healthy and independent lives. Helping ensure effective safeguarding arrangements are in place is a fundamental aspect of realising this vision. Effective safeguarding is also a fundamental aspect of the "personalisation" agenda in health and social care services.

Examples of work we will do to ensure effective safeguarding include:

• Immediately examining concerns of possible abuse, harm and neglect that come to our attention.
• If the concern is about a child's welfare we will then refer the concern to the local council for further investigation. In exceptional cases, CQC will lead investigations if serious systematic or widespread concerns have been raised and/or other approaches have failed.
• If the concern is about an adult's welfare, CQC will work with partners to help ensure people are protected, acting proportionately but never forgetting that people using the service or activity come first.
• Monitoring and making public how well relevant services and activities are complying with standards and responsibilities for safeguarding.
• Using our unique perspective across social care and health to report on our findings about safeguarding issues.
• Contributing to the formation and review of national safeguarding strategies, making recommendations for change and improvement.
• Working with partners such as the police, Ofsted, local councils and government departments to ensure people are safeguarded in communities.
• Involvement in multi-agency safeguarding inspections of local areas to help produce a complete picture of the effectiveness of arrangements in that area and find out the experience of people who live there. This will feed in to our other regulatory activity as well as other programmes of work such as the Comprehensive Area Assessment.

CQC will consult people who use services to gain their views on what is working well and what needs to improve, following-up by highlighting good practice and challenging poor practice.

If you are concerned about the welfare of a child or vulnerable adult using a healthcare service, please contact the appropriate local authority's social care service in the first instance. If you experience difficulty doing this or want to report a different issue, please call 03000 616161.

Notification requirement - Serious Case Reviews

On 18 December 2009 HM Government published revised statutory guidance on Serious Case Reviews which forms Chapter 8 of "Working Together to Safeguard Children" and incorporates recommendations made by Lord Laming. You can read this here.

Paragraph 8.18 requires Primary Care Trusts to notify the Care Quality Commission on initiation of a children's serious case review of the scope and terms of reference of the review. This information will be noted by Care Quality Commission pending completion of the review and may feed into the CQC regulatory process.

Notifications should be sent to safeguardingchildren@cqc.org.uk  within five working days of confirmation by the Local Safeguarding Children's Board to proceed with the Serious case Review and include the following information:

Date(s) of incident
Identifying code (notifications should not contain identifiable names or details).
Age(s) of child(ren)
Brief outline of case
Terms of Reference for the review
Which health and/or social care partners were involved.
Date of approval to proceed by Local Children's Safeguarding Children's Board
Contact name and details should further information be required.

An acknowledgement of receipt will be sent and the data will be forwarded, in confidence, to the assigned relationship manager for the commissioning Primary Care Trust.