WALSALL COUNCIL SOCIAL CARE & INCLUSION
MINUTES OF THE WALSALL ADULT PARTNERSHIP
SAFEGUARDING BOARD MEETING HELD ON
THURSDAY 22 MAY 2014
PRESENT:
Jane Evans
Suzanne Joyner
Andy Rust
Peter Davis
Richard O’Brien
Yvonne Nolan
Nigel Uttley
Angela Copestick
Sally Roberts
June Morrow
Debbie Cooper
Jennifer Robinson
John Bardsley
Adrian Roche
Adam Jones
Fay Baillie
Victoria Lee
Michaela Kerr
Davina Lytton
Denise Perry
Emma Cotterill
1.
Independent Chair
Head of Community Care
Head of Joint Commissioning
Head of Community Care
Head of Service
Interim Head of Adult Safeguarding
Team Manager – Adult Safeguarding
Team Manager – Adult Safeguarding
Lead Nurse – Walsall CCG
Walsall College
Safeguarding Lead (DWMHPT)
Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust
Black Country Partnership NHS Trust
Public Health
West Midlands Fire Service
NHS England
DS PPU West Midlands Police
DCI West Midlands Police
Age UK, Walsall
Area Manager- Communities and Public Health
Minute Taker
(JE)
(SJ)
(AR)
(PFD)
(ROB)
(YN)
(NU)
(AC)
(SR)
(JM)
(DC)
(JR)
(JB)
(ARo)
(AJ)
(FB)
(VL)
(MK)
(DL)
(DP)
(EC)
APOLOGIES:
Keith Skerman
Hassan Omar
Tess Beckett
John Leach
Tony McGregor
Robert Gilham
Susan Claire Marshall
Mandy Clarke
Faith Wilson
Interim Executive Director
Head of Service (DWMHT)
West Midlands Police
Head of Communities
Head of Safeguarding - Children
WHG
Black Country Partnership
Probation Service
Representing Children’s Services
(KS)
(HO)
(TB)
(JL)
(TMcG)
(RG)
(SCM)
(MC)
(FW)
ACTION
2.
MINUTES OF THE MEETING HELD ON 25 MARCH 2014
Agreed as a true record.
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Chase Nursing Home (AOB)
Action: SJ to check Maddy Wilkes’ notes to see if Chase
Nursing Home was discussed at the last Safeguarding SJ
Adults Board as requested by PFD.
3.
ACTION LOG AND FORWARD PLAN
Action Log updated.
DC explained that Dudley’s Adult Safeguarding Board were
in the middle of producing an action plan but this cannot be
shared with Walsall’s Adult Safeguarding Board at the
moment.
4.
CHAIR’S REPORT (Paper previously circulated)
JE’s Chair’s Report, previously circulated to the group, sets
out what is happening nationally. The board Audit Tool QA
Framework developed by London chairs group and fits with
Section 11 assessments currently being trailed in a number
of London Boroughs and it will be interesting to see what
comes out of their trial.
Phase 3 Making Safeguarding Personal has just finished
with 53 councils participating.
There will be a piece of work across the Black Country
looking at training across the board, looking at developing
consistent training and development to ensure we get the
best value out of training creating a standard across the
black country. JE suggested that this piece of work is
directed to the Sub Group and challenges can be made
there, timescale 3-4 months.
JE said she would like to recommend this way forward for
the board and this was agreed by all.
5.
WSAPB TERMS OF REFERENCE (Paper previously
circulated)
JE said that she had asked for comments from the board to
be with her by 4 April but had received no comments
whatsoever. DC said she wanted to change her title from
Walsall Safeguarding Inspector to Dudley and Walsall
Mental Health Partnership Trust Safeguarding Lead.
SJ said she felt that the Terms of Reference should quote
the objectives for this year to prepare a state of readiness for
the new Care Act legislation, AR said he agreed with SJ
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suggestions but felt it needed two separate statements to
become statutory.
Action: SJ to look at the wording within the Terms of
Reference and get them to JE as soon as possible.
6.
DEPRIVATION OF LIBERTY SAFEGUARDS UPDATE TO
INCLUDE THE HOUSE OF LORDS JUDGEMENT/
CHESHIRE WEST. THE IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE
IN WALSALL. (Papers previously circulated)
Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards Update to include the
House of Lords Judgement.
AC explained to the board that she had two papers for
discussion first being the House of Lords scrutiny report.
Back in May 2013 there was a review of the Mental Capacity
Act 2005.
The findings of the report were published on the 13th March
2014.
The Mental Capacity Act 2005 was a piece of legislation
designed to focus on those individuals who lack capacity
whether the reason being a learning disability, autism,
spectrum disorders, dementia, brain injury or temporary
impairment with statutory rights and placed the individual at
the heart of the decision making.
What the committee found was that the Act was held in high
regard but the expectations of the Act had not been met.
With a lack of awareness and recognition of MCA 2005,
compliance to the Act was an optional add-on to daily work
and the main areas for concern were with health and social
care sectors and there was no central ownership of the act.
DoLs applications/ referrals were dealt with on an urgent 7
day basis rather than the expected standard 21 day basis
and the legislative provisions of the DoLs and their operation
in practice are subject to extensive criticism, with provisions
being poorly drafted, overly complex with safeguards not well
understood and poorly implemented.
The committee made 2 principle recommendations that are
underpinned by 38 recommendations. One of the first
recommendations suggests a centrally based committee
taking responsibility for DoLs and regulation, and to
complete a review of the Mental Capacity Act legislation and
DoLs. This could take up to two years to be completed.
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The Cheshire West report bought forward the House of
Lords report, recommendations in Section 5 of the House of
Lords report indicates what we need to do as a board. AC
informed the group that the table within the report was now
out of date however the table shows that in January of this
year Walsall as a comparative came out quite low in referrals
compared to others authorities with only 29 DOLs requests
received.
Recommendation 9 states that ADASS and NHS England
are encouraging that we make wider use of commissioning
as a tool for compliance.
DL said that referrals and assessments were of poor quality,
training needed to become a part of this. AC explained that
in terms of training Walsall Council are currently looking at
Best Interest Assessors and that there was a whole action
plan that has been put in place following the Cheshire West
report.
SR explained that there was a National Fund available from
Health and had been successful at obtaining the fund. SR
explained that the fund would go towards improving access
and educational training for MCA and DOLs; in relation to
that there will be some posts available and she will be
meeting with the lead and look at resources. JE said that this
was excellent news.
Cheshire West Report
AC explained that the Cheshire West Report was a supreme
court ruling, in respect of a challenge to a DoLs which is a
legal framework for care homes, acute hospitals, psychiatric
hospitals and Independent hospitals to obtain power to
lawfully deprive people who lack capacity in these services.
The Cheshire West report highlighted two cases in particular
and they announced their final judgement on 19 March 2014.
In both cases the court found that both cases were deprived
of their liberty. This ruling has led to major changes including
a change in the law relating to DoLs, “relative normality” is
no longer deemed appropriate. This was where a person
would have previously been assessed against someone with
a similar disability and the completion of the acid test, which
is where anyone with continued supervision and control and
is the person free to leave was now deemed deprived of their
liberty.
Example: If a person is seen to lack capacity within a nursing
home and observations had been done and that person tried
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to exit the building and you prevented that person from going
that would be classed as a DoLs.
AC asked the group to look at table 4 within the report this
table gives the group an overview of the referrals coming in
over the past 6 weeks (01/04/14-15/05/14) where there had
been a total of 28 DoLs requests received and this is
increasing on a daily basis. The (BIA) Best Interest Assessor
role was problematic due to capacity issues however
regionally other authorities are experiencing the same
difficulties and have a higher number of referrals waiting to
be assessed so we need to make sure we are prepared.
AC explained that there needed to be more training and
awareness and was looking at a condensed (BIA) Best
Interest Assessor Course for staff. A briefing will be put on
for staff so that they can understand the role of the BIA
better and hopefully request to attend the training and
become BIAs.
ROB said that he wanted to look at the role of the Best
Interest Assessor too look at the impact this role is having on
the Social Work Staff. SJ agreed that the role of a (BIA) Best
Interest Assessor needed to be looked at.
AC explained that if a person had not been assessed by a
(BIA) Best Interest Assessor within 7 days an extension
could be granted.
SR said that she had been having discussions about ward
based activities, current practice and future practice with
Mental Health. DC explained that Dudley and Walsall
Mental Health partnership had recently changed their
governing database and is now able to know what
assessments are due within 7 days, etc. A working group
has been set up to look at the look at any overarching DoLs
and MCAs with one member taking lead for DoLs. JE asked
DC if she could share the overarching policy with the board.
DC said she would share what she had with the board.
SR said she had been working on providing awareness for
the care homes and nursing homes and was creating a set
of bridge sheets which will be issued to the care and Nursing
homes and have now been given approval for them to be
circulated.
7.
SERIOUS CASE REVIEW UPDATE
YN explained that the Serious Case Review could not take
place until the Court Hearing had taken place which had now
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been postponed 3 times. YN explained that she had not
received an update from the police but was hoping the court
case would take week. Once the court case had taken place
the group and panel can meet to discuss the outcomes. The
second serious case review was going to be chaired by
Martin from the Police, but this will now be passed to his
successor. MK said that she had not been informed of this
and asked YN to send her the details.
8.
SUB GROUP UPDATE:
(i) CHAIRS REPORT- QUALITY SUB GROUP
(INCLUDING THE FURTURE WORK STREAMS OF
LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT
COMMUNICATIONS)
SR said that she would quickly run through Quality and
Performance with the board and explained that she had
been looking to develop a dashboard but the work was
ongoing.
SR explained that she had met with colleagues and
discussion took place about the available Quality and
Performance data, this was an early draft and would look
at how the work could be presented better. SR said that
key partners such as the police were missing from the
data; SR said that she was having regular conversations
with the third sector such as DL, and the fire service was
also missing from the data sets. SR said that she felt the
Quality and Performance board needed to have a
membership that was reflective of the Adult Safeguarding
Board. SJ said that she would look at the attendance
from Social Care.
SR said that she wanted to ensure that the Quality and
Performance sub group were capturing meaningful data
such as the amount of referrals, alerts, and also wanted
to incorporate the multi agency data. JE said that she
was really pleased that data was starting to come
through to the Adult Safeguarding board as it was really
important that data was being reported here.
NU advised that the draft Dashboard was based on a
proposed Regional Performance Framework which was
currently subject to ongoing development.
SR said that she was really pleased with the work Elaine
Betts had been doing with regards to the training
outcomes and statistics for the local authority. Elaine has
looked at the numbers of people to complete training for
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the level 1 awareness and that is really starting to build
that up. JE said that the work being done was really
good.
OUTCOME OF THE DISCUSSION IN REGARD TO
THE:
ANNUAL ASSURANCE DOCUMENT.
SAFEGUARDING DASHBOARD.
Discussed at the Quality Sub Group – to be compared
with S11 audit– deferred for further comment at the
Regional Safeguarding Leads meeting before further
discussion at WSAPB.
9.
WSAPB ANNUAL REPORT 2013/14 DISCUSSION ON
PARTNER CONTRIBUTIONS
NU explained that the annual report was in the draft stage
awaiting the Safeguarding Adults Return data and
contributions from partners (email request for partner
contributions circulated on 2 May 2014). JE asked NU when
the statistical data would be ready; NU said that he had
received confirmation that the data would be submitted
shortly.
SJ said that NU should wait to see what the data submission
was from Louise Chapman. SJ explained that she would be
supporting NU with the text within the report and that the
data could then be put in at a later stage.
Action: SJ to speak with KS about his expectations SJ
around the report.
10.
CONTEST (Paper previously circulated)
ARo explained the purpose of the report which was to raise
awareness with Social Care and Inclusion staff and strategic
patterns around the importance of using the referral pathway
to report any concerns regarding clients who are displaying
vulnerability and potential for radicalisation by extremists
NU advised that CONTEST is the Government’s strategic
response to the concerns about extremism and consists of
four components such as Pursue, Protect, Prepare and
Prevent.
The recommendations to the board are as follows: a specific
page within the Adult Safeguarding Web Page giving an
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explanation about the CONTEST strategy, a commitment to
facilitating staff to receive free awareness training. Finally a
link on the WSAPB website to the Prevent referral form as
part of the prevent section of the Safer Walsall website to
encourage and ensure concerns are reported.
SR explained that Walsall Health Care had done as much as
possible around prevention and had resources at the CCG
that we are tapping into.
SJ asked if this was more of a Community Safety Team
issue rather than a Safeguarding Adults issue. ARo said that
this issue was already part of the Community Safety Team’s
agenda but would like to see this issue raised through other
pathways. SJ said she felt this was something to be
discussed outside of the board.
11.
DOMESTIC ABUSE RESPONSE TEAM (DART) REVIEW
(Paper previously circulated)
ARo explained that this report had moved on slightly and that
some of the items within the report had changed.
A review of the DART process was initiated in December
2013 by the chairs of the Children’s and Adult Safeguarding
Boards. An external consultant was brought in to carry out
the review which took place in January – March this year,
which saw 31 Local Authority managers interviewed and
produced significant report with 16 findings and 4
recommendations that were seen to need action right way.
The findings identified that the DART and MARAC steering
group met as a joint group and the Terms of Reference of
the group had not been agreed and it was unclear who the
steering group reported to.
ARo explained that the report was not final and was work in
progress and that the action plan would be bought back to
the board for contributions, Aro said that he wanted this to be
a live living through the action plan and a changing agenda
the Adult Safeguarding board were involved.
YN said that recommendation around the DART/MARAC
Steering Group had now been done (Terms of Reference,
Reporting lines) and could now report that people have taken
notice.
ARo said that the report concluded
recommendations for the board to consider.
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with
four
1. Maintain the present process for children and adults and
implement the suggested improved supportive
infrastructure.
2. As option 1 but with high risk notifications being directly
referred to MARAC.
3. As option 2 with adults screened out and referred to
ASC&I to allow DART to concentrate on the risks to
children.
4. Children and Young People to be screened at Multi
Agency Assessment Team (MAST) with the addition of
police and other partner agency involvement. A
multiagency model to be retained for adults based upon
the demand and needs of the referrals.
ARo said that there was an option to remove adults from the
process, JE said no and that children and young people did
not want that to be considered either. A resounding yes to
remaining in adults and children’s process.
Option 4 was discussed with setting up Multi agency
Assessment Teams around the borough, another stage of
development a (MAST) Multi Agency Screen Team now if we
were to go with option 4 there would have to be a sign up
from a large number of agencies, that could only be written
in the action plan to be considered and would require a
significant sign up and would not be something that can be
done right away.
SJ said she would go for the fourth option as discussions
around reviewing the MAST were in process looking at how
screening takes place and look at the resources we have.
SR said that there was significant work to be done in terms
of the multi agency contribution.
ARo
Action: Work regarding the DART to come back to the
board in July.
JE said that Option 4 looked the most positive and was
agreed by everyone around the table that the mast to be in
place first and then look at the MASH.
12.
CARE BILL UPDATE (CARE ACT 2014)
SJ explained that she had presented the presentation to
Scrutiny and that the name of the presentation had changed
since then to the Care Act 2014.
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The presentation takes you through the key and new
responsibilities for local government the presentation isn’t
anything that has not been spoken about here at the board.
There are key timescales in terms of the act looking at
regulations and guidance with more details about what it
means in reality, guidance around the DILNOTT funding care
account which won’t be out for the next few weeks.
DL asked how the Care Act 2014 would be delivered what
were the services to support this. SJ said that this was a
work in progress and SJ was the lead for the council and
was trying to establish a programme board approach with a
series of task and finish groups. SJ explained that the carer’s
partnership board was now up and running and the
representation was changeable and was happy for the
programme board to be widened out.
Action: SJ to bring back in July.
13.
SJ
MAKING SAFEGUARDING PERSONAL 2014-2015
YN explained to the board that she was in the in the process
of preparing a report for the Senior Management Team and
to consider the viability of running a pilot of making
safeguarding personal. Making Safeguarding Personal would
see a significant change in the approach to safeguarding
work instead of being by the process and timelines. This was
piloted successfully across 50 local authorities and was
driven by the outcomes that the victim wanted to achieve not
by timelines and processes. The making safeguarding
personal model focuses on the victim and family which is a
huge change and a culture change with staff and how we
work, what we record.
Action: YN to keep the board updated.
14.
PREVENTING
PEOPLE
VIOLENCE
AGAINST
YN
VULNERABLE
NU said that the preventing violence around vulnerable
people is to create a key range of outcome indicators to
measure prevention, protection etc. NU explained that the
PVVP Board was seeking contributions from partner
agencies to get involved and monitor data and also to review
progress. ARo said that Steven Rimmer, a senior Civil
Servant,was looking to build up this agenda and planned on
tracking indicators such as prevention and intervention. ARo
said that the local authority should link into the agenda to
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ensure we are contributing to it. SJ asked if this work was
being picked up through Safer Walsall, ARo said that he
would link into this work from Council perspective
MK said that there would be a different consideration from
Children’s do not see how we make the connection.
Action: ARo to make the connection for the Adult
Safeguarding Board.
JE agreed AR to be the key link in this.
15.
WSAPB RISK REGISTER (TASK AND FINISH GROUP)
JE said a task and finish group needed to be created for the
Risk Register and was looking for volunteers.
The board agreed that Nigel Uttley would coordinate with
representation from Debbie Cooper, Jon Beardsley, Jennifer
Robinson and Jane Evans the outcome to be discussed
Quality Sub Group.
16.
HOT TOPICS
AACM
ROB said that he had been looking at the form and function
within AACM and the current pathways that fall within
Safeguarding. ROB said it was a good time to review and
link in with SR through Quality & Performance looking at the
front end of the service.
Action: ROB to continue to update the board on the ROB
progress of AACM with regards to the form and
function.
Care in Care homes
DL said that following the documentary regarding Care within
Care Homes Age UK had received a lot of telephone calls
from worried customer’s etc. DL said that whatever hits the
headlines in terms of Care Homes etc affects the drop in
service. SJ said that Andy Rust was now responsible for
Quality and Performance within Care Homes.
Action: AR/JCU taking this forward update at the July AR
board.
Vulnerable Adult Hub
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MK said that a dedicated domestic abuse protection team
and Hub would go live from 16/06/14
Private Hospital – Ivy Dean
No longer open.
17.
ANY OTHER BUSINESS
No Items
18.
DATE AND TIME OF NEXT MEETING
Date:
Thursday, 24 July 2014
Time:
10.00 am
Venue:
Conference Room 2, The Council House,
Walsall
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