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SUNDERLAND SAFEGUARDING ADULTS BOARD
STRATEGIC PLAN 2014-2017
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SSAB Strategic Plan 2014-17
Purpose of the Plan
The Sunderland Safeguarding Adults Board (SSAB) Strategic Plan is the high-level
strategic document that sets out its Key Aims & Objectives identifies how
Safeguarding Adults work will be delivered within Sunderland by the collective
working together of the key partner agencies within the City.
It is underpinned by the following documents:
SSAB Multi-Agency Agreement & Memorandum of Understanding – this
document describes the Board’s remit and governance arrangements, including
Terms of Reference and the reporting structure of the Executive Group and Sub
Committees that sit under the SSAB. It also outlines the roles and responsibilities of
Board members.
SSAB Delivery Plan 2014-17 – this document identifies the key actions that the
SSAB will take forward over 3 years, via the work of the Sub Committees and
Executive Group. It will be regularly monitored and reviewed as part of the SSAB
Business monitoring process. The Plan will be supported by information gathered
from the Safeguarding Adults Performance dataset, which will be collated using a
‘Performance Scorecard’ approach.
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Making a Difference
Our main focus over the next 3 years will be:
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SSAB Key Aims
These are based on the Local Government Association Standards for Adult
Safeguarding (2011):
1. Improved Outcomes – ensuring vulnerable people are safeguarded in the
community and in establishments such as care homes and hospitals through an
approach across all Partners that is clearly focused on intervention and prevention
to achieve outcomes.
2. Improved Experiences of Safeguarding - ensuring people experiencing
safeguarding services are treated sensitively and with dignity and respect through
the delivery of personalised safeguarding services.
3. Effective Leadership – ensuring recognised and active leadership across all
Partners – this strengthens and raises the profile of safeguarding
4. Strategic Approach – ensuring safeguarding is embedded and clearly evidenced
in corporate and service strategies across all Partners
5. Commissioning for Quality – ensuring safe and cost effective commissioning
across all Partners, enabling people to manage risks and benefits of care and
support services
6. Effective Delivery and Practice – ensuring safeguarding is everybody’s business
through effective service delivery and mechanisms that enable people to
understand what abuse is and how to respond to it
7. Robust Performance and Resource Management – ensuring services are
accountable and quality measures are in place; with a learning culture that enables
all Partners to learn from both best practice and things that do not go well
8. Working Together – ensuring commitment from all Partners to safeguarding;
working closely with other Strategic Partnerships to ensure safeguarding is
effective at all levels (prevention and intervention)
Key Objectives
These are linked to the above aims, and are as follows:
Improved Outcomes and Experiences of safeguarding (Key Aims 1 and 2)

Promote the active involvement of services users, their carers, their
families and their advocates and adopt an inclusive approach to secure wider
community understanding, awareness and feedback on safeguarding adults
arrangements
Leadership, Strategy and Commissioning (Key Aims 3, 4 and 5)

Ensure effective leadership across all partners and commissioning for
quality supports people to manage risks and benefits of care and support
services
Effective Service Delivery and Practice (Key Aim 6)
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
Secure citywide consistency in safeguarding and ensure all staff and
stakeholders know and use policies and procedures effectively

Promote a learning culture around safeguarding by supporting and
participating in Serious Case Reviews and other learning reviews, through
shared learning, by learning and contributing to relevant national policy and
research, through the dissemination of information, advice, feedback, reviews,
research, best practice in prevention and learning through joint quality
assurance processes
Performance and Resource Management (Key Aim 7)

Secure effective operational safeguarding through overseeing and
monitoring operational safeguarding adults’ activity.
Working Together (Key Aim 8)

Develop and maintain strong links with relevant partnerships across the
City and ensure the inclusion of safeguarding adults in their strategies and
business plans
The SSAB and its Strategic Plan are also underpinned by the 6 Key Principles of Adult
Safeguarding identified in the Care Act (2014):

Empowerment – People being supported and encouraged to make their own
decisions and informed consent.
“I am asked what I want as the outcomes from the safeguarding process and
these directly inform what happens”.

Prevention – It is better to take action before harm occurs.
“I receive clear and simple information about what abuse is, how to recognise
the signs and what I can do to seek help”.

Proportionality – The least intrusive response appropriate to the risk
presented.
“I am sure that professionals will work in my interest, as I see them and they
will only get involved as much as needed”.

Protection – Support and representation for those in greatest need.
“I get help and support to report abuse and neglect. I get help so that I am able
to take part in the safeguarding process to the extent to which I want”.

Partnership – Local solutions through services working with their communities.
Communities have a part to play in preventing, detecting and reporting neglect
and abuse.
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“I know that staff treat any personal and sensitive information in confidence,
only sharing what is helpful and necessary. I am confident that professionals
will work together and with me to get the best result for me”.

Accountability – Accountability and transparency in delivering safeguarding.
“I understand the role of everyone involved in my life and so do they”.
SSAB Key Objectives: Actions (taken from SSAB Delivery Plan 2014-17)
Key Objective 1: Promote the active involvement of service users, their
carers, their families and their advocates
Ensure multi-agency implementation of the Making Safeguarding Personal
agenda.
To ensure service users, their carers, families and advocates are empowered to
contribute to the Safeguarding Adult Review (SAR) process where appropriate.
SSAB website to be updated to ensure it is easily accessible for service users,
their carers, their families and their advocates
Scope out the feasibility of integrating the SSCB/SSAB website to improve
accessibility to the public
Marketing campaign to be developed to raise awareness of safeguarding adults to
be undertaken across all partner agencies throughout 2015
Establish strong links with Voluntary Sector organisations/Carer organisations to
promote awareness and identify support mechanisms available
Undertake the development of appropriate patient-friendly literature for display/use
in public areas.
Service users, their carers, their families and their advocates to be offered
opportunities to feedback about the work of the SSAB and their experience of
Safeguarding in Sunderland.
Key Objective 2: Ensure Effective Leadership is in Place
Active review of Training and Workforce Development Sub-Committee structure,
agency representation and terms of reference
To ensure the SSAB supports the undertaking of a statutory Domestic Homicide
Review (DHR) through close collaboration with the Safer Sunderland Partnership
Active promotion of the Shared Strategic Vision, strategies and plans in relation to
safeguarding adults across partner agencies.
Ensure a strong interface with existing Community Safety Partnership and Health
and Wellbeing Board
All partners will be expected to influence and direct their own organisations with
regard to promoting safeguarding adults from frontline staff to Board level
Key Objective 3: Secure citywide consistency in safeguarding
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Promote joint workforce development across agencies, in collaboration with other
partnerships where necessary, and the publication of data linked to the training of
staff.
Develop a training plan for Elected Members and non-executives of NHS Boards
To work in partnership with the Training and Workforce Development subcommittee to ensure any learning and best practice that have been identified from
reviews is shared.
To undertake specific campaigns to support the SSAB/SSCB to ensure lessons
learned from serious case reviews and safeguarding adult reviews are shared
appropriately
Marketing campaign to be developed to support and promote the Mental Capacity
Act and Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards
Support the development of training programme during 2015
Key Objective 4: Promote a learning culture around safeguarding
Work in partnership with Learning and Improvement in Practice Sub-Committee to
ensure learning from reviews is shared and best practice is acknowledged
Ensuring training and workforce development programmes are monitored on a
regular basis, and updated as learning opportunities arise.
To develop a Learning and Improvement Framework to ensure all partner
agencies are certain of their responsibilities with regard to safeguarding adults at
risk, and to improve services for such adults, their families and carers.
To collaborate with the Quality Assurance sub-committee to ensure any action
plans arising from reviews are implemented in a timely manner and audit
processes agreed.
Share and disseminate lessons learned from Sunderland Serious Case Reviews
or other review methods and benchmark learning from SCR’s in other localities
Ensure robust and up-to-date training and workforce development programmes
are in place across agencies, which are regularly updated
Ensure key themes and messages are shared with statutory and non-statutory
agencies and the public on a regular basis
Mental Capacity Act/Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards Conference for
professionals February 2015
Annual safeguarding event will be used to share good practice and lessons
learned from safeguarding cases
Promote awareness around issues relating to older people and domestic abuse
Promote awareness of frontline staff to domestic violence (including domestic
abuse relating to older people)
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Key Objective 5: Performance Management of the SSAB safeguarding adults
activity and outcomes
Ensure robust and up-to-date training and workforce development programmes
are in place across agencies, which are regularly updated
Planned programme of Multi-Agency Case File Audit
Develop a programme to review performance in relation to Safeguarding Adults
Threshold Guidance decision making, including undertaking sample audit of
threshold decisions that have been revised/amended.
Develop an audit tool to look at how outcomes for individuals are documented
within the safeguarding process (“Making Safeguarding Personal”)
Annual assurance of organisational compliance with Safeguarding Adults
requirements using SSAB Members Questionnaire and Organisational SelfAssessment Tool.
Annual review of Sub Committees’ activity
To work in conjunction with the Learning & Improvement In Practice (LIIP) Sub
Committee to establish a regular reporting cycle and processes to assure SSAB
that robust systems & evidence are in place to support the timely completion and
sign off of action plans resulting from Safeguarding Adult Reviews, Domestic
Homicide Reviews and any other relevant reviews.
Performance report data to include:
- key safeguarding outcomes to ensure mapping of trends in relation to the level of
compliance with agreed outcomes
- monitoring of compliance with SGA processes
Monitor and assure SSAB in respect of detailed analysis of National Comparator
figures where Sunderland is identified as significantly different to national reported
figures.
Produce a Performance Management Framework (as tasked by SSAB) that
identifies outcome measures and performance indicators that will provide clear
evidence that an outcome measure is being met across the Local Authority and
partners. The identification of the outcome measures and indicators will inform the
data required from all partners.
To establish a regular reporting cycle and processes in conjunction with the
Learning & Improvement In Practice Sub Committee (which deals with
Safeguarding Adult Reviews) to assure SSAB that robust systems are in place to
support the sign off of action plans resulting from case reviews, Serious Case
Reviews and Domestic Homicide Reviews.
In addition, to ensure actions are completed following the sending of Action Plans
from the LIIP Sub Committee to the QA.
Work in conjunction with the Training, Workforce and Development and
Communication and Marketing sub committees to ensure learning from reviews is
shared and best practice is celebrated.
Ensuring key messages from SSAB/SSCB annual reports are shared across
agencies
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Key Objective 6: Respond to the Care Act Developments
Ensure requirements of the Care Act are met in relation to safeguarding training
for all staff and volunteers
To undertake a review of the Safeguarding Adult Review Protocol to ensure the
statutory requirements are in place to support the review process
Marketing campaign to be developed to share key messages regarding the
implementation of the Care Act and local implications for Safeguarding Adults
This Strategic Plan (and the SSAB Delivery Plan) covers the period 2014-17. It will
however be reviewed annually (as is the Delivery Plan) to ensure the objectives and
actions continue to be relevant to safeguarding adults in Sunderland.
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