Knowledge and attitudes of staff towards adult protection
| Pages | 26-32 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/14668203200300031 |
| Date | 01 December 2003 |
| Published date | 01 December 2003 |
| Author | Kate Taylor,Karen Dodd |
| Subject Matter | Health & social care,Sociology |
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Research paper
26 © Pavilion Publishing (Brighton) Limited The Journal of Adult Protection Volume 5 Issue 4 • December 2003
Introduction
Evidence from the literature demonstrates that people who are
classified as vulnerable adults are particularly at risk from
abuse; for example, individuals with a learning disability
(McCarthy & Thompson, 1997; Turk & Brown, 1993), older
adults (Ogg & Bennett, 1992) and people with mental health
problems (Ryan, 2001). Surrey Social Services worked with
partner agencies to develop their multi-agency procedures,
which were published in December 1998 as a framework to
help identify and respond to incidents of abuse. This pre-dated
the publication of No Secrets (Department of Health, 2000),
which led to a subsequent review of the multi-agency
procedures in 2001.
The Surrey Adult Protection Committee has been
monitoring the incidence of abuse through the collection of
monitoring data since 1999. The data indicate that there is an
imbalance in reporting across the different groups of
vulnerable adults. Initial monitoring data for 2000/1 showed
that 55% of reported abuse related to adults with learning
disabilities, 20% to older adults, and 14% to people with
mental health problems. In the subsequent year, of the 224
allegations of abuse reported between April 2001 and March
2002, 41% were regarding people with a learning disability,
and 33% older adults. Only five per cent were made for an
individual with a physical disability and one per cent for
people with a mental health problem. These findings also
resemble others in the literature, where abuse prevalence
figures have been criticised for estimating a lower level of
abuse than that actually occurring – for example, Brown
(1994) and Rosenblatt et al (1996).
Knowledge and attitudes of
staff towards adult
protection Kate Taylor
Research Assistant, Surrey Oaklands NHS Trust
Karen Dodd
Head of Psychology, Surrey Oaklands NHS Trust
key words
abuse
reporting
knowledge
beliefs
evidence
collusion
abstract
Despite the introduction of
Surrey-wide vulnerable adults
policies and procedures, monitoring
figures from the Surrey Adult
Protection Committee indicate that
abuse is still being under-reported
for different service user groups.This
study explored staff knowledge and
attitudes towards abuse and the
reporting procedure to further
understand why abuse is not
reported.
J/194/11/03JAP5.4DecInsides 8/12/03 10:56 am Page 26
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