Safeguardung Of The Vulnerable Adults Essay Example for Free

Safe guardung Of The Vulnerable Adults Essay1.1Safeguarding means proactively seeking to involve the whole community in keeping the private secure and promoting their welfare. Safeguarding is an serious part of integrated working. When professionals work to postureher in an integrated way, they put the individual at the centre of all activities to help identify their holistic demand earlier to improve their life outcomes. It is important to see resistanceing as part of a continuum, where prohibition and early intervention can help children, undefended adults and families get back on track and repeal problems turning into a crisis. Protection is a central part of safeguarding and promoting welfare. It is the process of protecting an individual identified as either suffering or at stake of suffering significant harm as a result of blackguard or neglect.1.2 It is important to appreciate the processes that are in place to ensure that they are working to the good of the in dividuals. As new policies are brought in, because it is vital to ensure that, the assist background knowledge responds to these by updating their profess paper work. The only way in which to evaluate as to whether the policies are working is by the feed back from mental faculty and how they respond to situations, when policies are developed it is critical that provide are aware of the changes in the policies and that these policies are available to all staff and these changes are cascaded down. Lessons learned from safe guarding situations should be taken into account and used to strengthen the knowledge of all. 1.3 The legislation and government policy framework relating to adult safeguarding is subject to considerable debate and change. unless includes the followingLegal Powers to InterveneCivil LibertiesDisclosure and Barring ServiceMental Capacity Act 2005Mental Health Act 2007Health and companionable Care Act 2008National Policy and GuidanceRegistered Health and Socia l Care ProvidersNo Secrets sets out a code of practice for the protection of defenselessadults.It explains how commissioners and providers of health and complaisant care services should work together to produce and implement topical anesthetic policies and procedures. They should collaborate with the public, voluntary and private sectors and they should also consult service exploiters, their carers and representative groups. Local authority social services departments should co-ordinate the development of policies and procedures.1.4Serious case checks are not done to reinvestigate or to apportion lodge, but rather 1. To establish whether in that location are lessons to be learnt from the circumstances of the case about the way in which local professionals and agencies work together to safeguard vulnerable adults 2. To review the accomplishmentiveness of procedures (both multi-agency and those of individual organisations) 3. To certify and improve local inter-agency practice 4. To improve practice by acting on learning (developing beat out practice) 5. To prepare or commission an overview report which brings together and analyses the findings of the various reports from agencies in order to make recommendations for future action (ADASS, 2006). The purpose of any case review is to protect vulnerable adults, by drawing upon lessons to be learned from individual cases, making recommendations aimed at preventing similar tragedy by strengthening and improving multi-agency procedures and arrangements. end point 7 of CQC essential standards, safeguarding people who use the service from malignment explains the regulations and expectations that a service provider must comply with.The introduction of the No Secrets guidance (2000), which gives councils the tariff for establishing and coordinating local multi-agency procedures for responding to allegations of abuse. It also introduced the principle that social services departments and their partners should se t up adult protection committees, usually referred to as safeguarding adults partnership boards, to coordinate local safeguarding arrangements. The Putting People First concordat described a range of features that were viewed as central to system-wide transformationof care, including safeguarding.This included Joint (local council and PCT) strategic needs judgments to inform the local community strategy and an integrated approach to commissioning and market development. Prevention, early intervention and enablement becoming the norm. Universal information, advice and advocacy, ir appreciateive of eligibility for public funds. Common assessment with greater emphasis on self-assessment. Person-centred planning and self-directed support becoming mainstreamed, with personal budgets for everyone eligible for publicly-funded care and support and more people opting to arrange their own support with direct payments. Adult social care to champion the needs and rights of disabled peopl e and older adults, safeguarding and promoting dignity, supporting a collective voice with exploiter-led organisations, enhancing social capital and developing the local workforce. Paper by department of health gateway reference 16702 outlines the governments policy on safeguarding vulnerable adults.1.5 Each county have their information on Safeguarding adults and these can be found on the appropriate websites for the county, which gives the information and guidance on Multi agency procedures. Below is an display case from Surrey C.C. which outlines the referral procedures when dealing with a safeguarding alert, from agency level upwards. Prior to this, staff would report to their line manager, or in the case of serious concern, for instance where the person is in immediate danger they would report this to the police directly. Incident and accident report forms would need to be completed and the manager would be expected to take statements from the staff and notify the local au thority.2.1The organisation should recognise that vulnerable adults have the right to take risks and should provide help and support to enable them to identify and manage authority and actual risks to themselves and others. It is important that the organisation has a policy of positive risk-taking and avoids becoming totally risk averse. Risk averse cultures can stifle and constrain and could allure to inappropriate restriction to the individuals rights. Life is never risk free. Some degree of risk-taking is an essentialpart of fostering independence. For instance, if you identify an activity or set of circumstances as potentially risky to a vulnerable adult or group of vulnerable adults, this needs to be offset against the benefits which the individual or group might draw from taking part in that activity. Risk-taking should be pursued in a context of promoting opportunities and safety, not poor practice.In a culture of positive risk-taking, risk assessment should involve everyon e affected vulnerable adults and carers, advocates, staff and volunteers and, where they are involved, health and social care staff.2.2Physical abuse indicatorsA history of unexplained falls or minor injuries especially at different stages of healing Unexplained bruising in well-protected areas of body, e.g. on the inner of thighs or upper arms etc. Unexplained bruising or injuries of any sortBurn marks of unusual type, e.g. burns caused by cigarettes and rophy burns etc. A history of frequent changes of general practitioners or reluctance in the family, carer or friend towards a general practitioner reference point Accumulation of medicine which has been prescribed for a client but not administered Malnutrition, ulcers, bed sores and being left in wet clothing Sexual abuse indicatorsUnexplained changes in the demeanour and deportment of the vulnerable adult Tendency to withdraw and spend time in isolation. expression of explicit sexual behaviour and/or language by the vulnerab le adult which is out of character Irregular and disturbed sleep patternBruising or bleeding in the rectal or genital areasTorn or stained underclothing especially with blood or semen Sexually transmitted disease or pregnancy where the individual cannot give consent to sexual acts.Psychological abuse indicatorsInability of the vulnerable person to sleep or tendency to spend yen periods in bedLoss of appetite or overeating at inappropriate timesAnxiety, confusion or general resignationTendency towards social withdrawal and isolationFearfulness and signs of loss of self-esteemUncharacteristic manipulative, uncooperative and aggressive behaviourFinancial abuse indicatorsUnexplained inability to pay for menage shopping or bills etc.Withdrawal of large sums of money which cannot be explainedMissing personal possessionsDisparity between the persons living conditions and their financial resourcesUnusual and unmatched interest and involvement in the vulnerable adults assetsNeglect and ac ts of omission indicatorsInadequate heating, lighting, food or fluidsFailure by carer to give prescribed medication or obtain appropriate medical careCarers reluctant to accept contact from health or social care professionalsRefusal to arrange access for visitorsPoor corporal condition in the vulnerable person e.g. ulcers, bed soresApparently unexplained weight lossUnkempt clothing and appearanceInappropriate or misfortunate clothing, or nightclothes worn during the day Sensory deprivation lack of access to glasses, hearing aids etc.Absence of appropriate privacy and dignityAbsence of method of calling for assistanceDiscriminatory abuse indicatorsTendency to withdrawal and isolationFearfulness and anxietyBeing refused access to services or being excluded inappropriatelyLoss of self-esteemResistance or refusal to access services that are required to meet needExpressions of anger or thwartingMeasures that can be taken to avoid abuse taking place can be as follows1. Identifying peo ple at risk of abuse2. human race awareness3. Information, advice and advocacy4. Training and education5. Policies and procedures6. Community links7. Regulation and legislation8. Inter-agency collaboration9. Empowerment and choiceMeasures that can be taken to avoid the risk of abuse, is the implementation of robust policies, which need to be monitored and evaluated on a regular basis. Risk assessments should be in place and information should be shared with other professionals involved in the care of the vulnerable adult. Where there is doubt or concerns in respect of an individual, then it is important that these are acted upon with immediate effect and that a multi agency strategy showdown is held, so that a risk assessment may be put together to prevent the service user coming to harm. Reporting and record keeping is essential in such cases as is the sharing of information. 3. Recently in Surrey the first quality assurance,multi agency risk management meeting was held, this wa s a meeting following a safeguarding incident which took place in July last year. It looked at how the different agencies had worked together to safe guard a vulnerable adult from suspected abuse.Agencies involved , were social care team, police, service provider, housing , g.ps and specialist nurses. During the period of time prior to this meeting there had been safeguarding meetings on a 6 weekly basis, multi agency risk assessments had been drawn up and had been discussed at length by all of those involved, each element taking part had deadlines to meet on actions raised. When circumstances changed, so did the risk assessments, and alwayscovered were the what if scenarios. It was felt from this meeting that everything had been done to protect the service user and that all agencies had worked well together ( I was a participant at this meeting )4.All vulnerable adults where possible should contribute to decisions made in respect of the care that they receive. Families and profe ssionals involved in the care of a vulnerable adult, should also contribute to the initial risk assessment which are done and subsequent ones when there are changes. It will become apparent whether systems and procedures put in place are working, with constant recording and reporting back from staff involved in the care of the individual. There may be times, when there needs to be a review of the care plans, or changes to it due to changes within the environment, the service user themselves or their circumstances.This does not always mean that all of those involved get it right all of the time, personally I have been involved in a unsafe hospital discharge, where I challenged the procedures that were in place. Following that there was a senior strategy meeting and it was discussed how we could all move forward together to prevent the type of situation occurring again. The key to getting things right is discussion and not apportioning blame to others, looking at how services can be i mproved, then implementing them and monitoring them. Feedback is essential from all involved.