Reflections on the serious case review of a female adult (JK)
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.5042/jap.2010.0641 |
| Published date | 12 November 2010 |
| Pages | 16-30 |
| Date | 12 November 2010 |
| Author | Peter Scourfield |
| Subject Matter | Health & social care,Sociology |
16 © Pier Professional Ltd The Journal of Adult Protection Volume 12 Issue 4 • November 2010
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Research paper
Introduction
As this is an executive summary, the possibility of
understanding the fine grain of all that actually happened is
limited. However, the main reason for citing the JK report
is to discuss some of the issues that it raises more generally.
This is because, despite the fact that the report describes the
circumstances of the JK case as ‘unusual’, this paper proposes
that situations similar to that of JK are actually quite common
and raises questions that practitioners involved in adult
social care will be very familiar with. For example, whether
someone (who is judged to have capacity) has the right to
live in squalor and unsafe circumstances, whether their choice
to refuse services is an acceptable choice and what can and
should practitioners do if they believe someone is making
an unwise choice in such circumstances – both in legal and
moral terms? More recently, one might add the question of
whether such situations are actually appropriately considered
issues of safeguarding or whether they should be more properly
considered as issues of social or ‘community’ care. It hardly
needs to be said that these and other questions bring into focus
fundamental and complex issues of self-determination, choice,
risk, protection and, inevitably, the exercise of power.
Given the scope and complexity of the issues raised, the
discussion does not claim to be able to cover everything in great
depth. However, in order to provoke further debate, the paper
considers these issues under the following three headings:
1. legal powers in working with people who refuse services
2. a consideration of relevant concepts: choice, risk self-
determination and power
3. should such situations always be regarded as safeguarding issues
and what are the implications of them being so regarded?
For the full summary, the reader is directed to the ‘Safeguarding
Adults Serious Case Reviews’ pages on the Cornwall Council
Reflections on the serious case
review of a female adult (JK)
Peter Scourfield
Senior Lecturer in Social Policy and Social Work,
Anglia Ruskin University, UK
key words
safeguarding, serious case
review, self-neglect
abstract
This paper originates from accessing
the Cornwall Council website (Cornwall
Council, 2010) in order to download the
report of the serious case review into the
murder of Steven Hoskin for teaching
purposes on a Post-Qualifying Social
Work programme. However, there were
another two serious case review reports
posted, which were also relevant to the
course. This reflective piece follows from
a reading of the executive summary of
one of them – the Serious Case Review
report into the death of JK (a 76-year-old
female) in 2008 in Cornwall (Cornwall
& Isles of Scilly Safeguarding Adults
Board, 2009). While adult safeguarding
is everybody’s business, because of
the original reason for accessing the
report, the paper approaches the issues
primarily from a social work perspective.
10.5042/jap.2010.0641
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