Editorial
| Published date | 07 March 2019 |
| Pages | 1-4 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JAP-02-2019-050 |
| Date | 07 March 2019 |
| Author | Bridget Penhale,Margaret Flynn |
| Subject Matter | Health & social care,Vulnerable groups,Adult protection,Safeguarding,Sociology,Sociology of the family,Abuse |
Bridget Penhale and Margaret Flynn
Welcome to the first issue of 2019 and belated Happy New Year! We hope that you will all have
had good festive seasons and that the year has started well for all involved in the
journal –especially for readers! As in most issues of the journal, we start with a number of news
items concerning safeguarding related issues that have appeared in media coverage over the
past few months that readers may find interesting. Before introducing the main contents of this
issue, please see below for a selection of these items from across the news media.
The heartfelt theme of Bob Hudson’s article[1] “The only way is ethics: a new approach to
outsourcing social care”is timely. Endorsing the participatory strategies of Dan Hind (2010).
Hudson gives an emphatic thumbs down to outsourcing social care, “Weak contracting,
inadequate budgets, poor supervision, insufficient regulation and overweening providers have all
been identified as factors contributing to the fragility of the model”. As we know from recent
events, some of the issues relating to contracting, supervision and regulation have been
identified in reviews of situations in which serious safeguarding concerns have developed and
been identified, if not satisfactorily dealt with.
Hudson proposes that the ethics of decision making among public services commissioners
requires attention and poses such relevant questions as these:
Are you able to distinguish between the workforce practices of different providers and prioritise
the ethical providers, e.g. those accredited by the Living Wage Foundation? Are the companies
responsible for delivering public services subject to the UK taxation law? Do they have
transparent contracts without recourse to “commercial confidentiality?”Are you favouring
smaller, local services with local knowledge of the matters affecting people? What ethical
considerations are being brought to bear on “promoting good lives well-lived and protecting the
wider economic, social and environmental well-being”of a locality?
A small item in the Bangor and Anglesey News (28 November 2018) merits coverage in this
regard. “Council to use housing sto ck to slash bill for vulnera ble child care”describes how
Anglesey Council is setting aside some of its housing stock to accommodate children and
young people requiring “round the clock support […] even taking staffing and conve rsion costs
into account […] the move is expected to save the cash strapped authority £522,896.00 over
the first two years”–the amount typically spent on “private care […] in England”. Also, d uring
November an investi gation by The Guardia n[2] “found evidence of councils putting the
personal details of children in online adverts, including information about previous sexual abuse
and gang involvem ent, while inviting bids from priv ate companies for their care […] [and since]
children’s care homes are in crisis […] private companies [are] taking over and charging
councils more than £7,000.00 a week”. With private provi ders dictating prices, the Associ ation
of Directors of Children’s Services has confirmed that the cost of such placements is “one of
the biggest financ ial pressures on local authorit ies”and therefore provides a clear ince ntive for
cost-cutting wh erever possible.
During November the Office for National Statistics reported on an analysis of the death
certificates of care home residents[3]. This confirmed that “as many as 1,463 vulnerable
residents in NHS, local authority and privately run homes in England and Wales have died over
the past five years with one of the conditions [‘malnutrition, dehydration or bed sores’] mentioned
on their death certificates […]. It follows a separate Guardian investigation which revealed that
some of the country’s worst care homes are owed by companies that made a total profit of
DOI 10.1108/JAP-02-2019-050 VOL. 21 NO. 1 2019, pp. 1-4, © Emerald Publishing Limited, ISSN 1466-8203
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THE JOURNAL OF ADULT PROTECTION
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Editorial
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