Safeguarding and personalisation
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.5042/jap.2010.0295 |
| Published date | 26 May 2010 |
| Date | 26 May 2010 |
| Pages | 43-51 |
| Author | Belinda Schwehr |
| Subject Matter | Health & social care,Sociology |
The Journal of Adult Protection Volume 12 Issue 2 • May 2010 © Pier Professional Ltd 43
Introduction – the basis for safeguarding in
2010
In 2010, the safeguarding of vulnerable adults is an aspiration
rather than a statutory function. It is derived from government
exhortation in guidance – No Secrets (Department of Health
& Home Office, 2000) – and from professional advice about
good practice, in the shape of Safeguarding Adults (Association
of Directors of Adult Social Serices, 2005).
The steps expected of local authorities have only limited
legal grounding in care management and care planning
statutory functions. For example, investigating a referral is
really an assessment of eligibility for community care needs
or provision, or a review of whether the care plan has to be
altered, if the concern is about abuse of an existing client.
Much of what providers are asked to do, disclose, provide
or discuss, more often relates to day-to-day management of
the care package, and that matter is an aspect of provider
management and contract monitoring by the commissioning
authority. This body will not always be the same as the
safeguarding lead authority in the area where the client is
physically situated. Contract monitoring is only as extensive as
the commissioning authority has arranged for it to be, by way
of the agreed wording in the contract terms and conditions.
Regulatory law applies to providers, directly, but only goes
so far; it is not fully comprehensive for every situation. And
the Care Quality Commission (CQC) has very few functions
that one would call ‘adult protection’ functions.
The legal framework for safeguarding
It is suggested that the legal framework for safeguarding is
being developed through a mixture of the following common
law and statutorily-based fields of judicial scrutiny.
Safeguarding and
personalisation
Belinda Schwehr
Legal Trainer and Consultant, Care and
Health Law
key words
Safeguarding, legal framework,
personalisation, risk management,
direct payments, health and safety,
financial risk, abusive employers,
abusive employees
abstract
This article examines the
existing legal framework for
safeguarding in the context of the
Putting People First
(Ministers
et al
,
2007) agenda, in order to consider
the risks of abuse in a new era of
arms’ length care management, and
the employment of non-regulated
workers. It examines how these
risks may be adequately and
proactively managed through
attention to the requirements of
the current legal framework, as
long as it is understood that the
current legal framework should be
pervaded, by now, by the principles
and fall-back remedies offered by
the
Mental Capacity Act 2005
(HM
Government, 2005a).
10.5042/jap.2010.0295
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