Roles and duties of the Safeguarding Adults Board
The role of the SAB
The overarching purpose of an SAB is to help and safeguard adults with care and support needs. It does this by:
- assuring itself that local safeguarding arrangements are in place as defined by the Care Act 2014 and statutory guidance
- assuring itself that safeguarding practice is person-centred and outcome-focused
- working collaboratively to prevent abuse and neglect where possible
- ensuring agencies and individuals give timely and proportionate responses when abuse or neglect have occurred
- assuring itself that safeguarding practice is continuously improving and enhancing the quality of life of adults in its area.
Core duties
SABs have three core duties. They must:
- develop and publish a strategic plan setting out how they will meet their objectives and how their member and partner agencies will contribute
- publish an annual report detailing how effective their work has been
- commission safeguarding adults reviews (SARs) for any cases which meet the criteria for these.
The six safeguarding principles
- Empowerment: people being supported and encouraged to make their own decisions and give informed consent
- Prevention: it is better to take action before harm occurs
- Proportionality: the least intrusive response appropriate to the risk presented
- Protection: support and representation for those in greatest need
- Partnership: local solutions through services working with their communities – communities have a part to play in preventing, detecting and reporting neglect and abuse
- Accountability and transparency in safeguarding practice
Making Safeguarding Personal
Developing a safeguarding culture that focuses on the personalised outcomes desired by people with care and support needs who may have been abused is a key operational and strategic goal. SABs, therefore, may want to consider the role they can play in embedding the ‘Making Safeguarding Personal’ approach across agencies by establishing and developing:
- a broader participation strategy
- accessible information to support participation of people in safeguarding support
- a focus on qualitative reporting on outcomes as well as quantitative measures
- advocacy
- person-centred approaches to working with risk
- policies and procedures that are in line with a personalised safeguarding approach
- strategies to enable practitioners to work in this way, by looking at the skills they need and the support they are getting to enable this shift in culture.