You are not, any of you, my mother: what happened to the safeguarding power of entry?
| Published date | 04 February 2014 |
| Pages | 41-51 |
| Date | 04 February 2014 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JAP-09-2013-0040 |
| Author | David Hewitt |
| Subject Matter | Health & social care,Vulnerable groups,Adult protection |
You are not, any of you, my mother:
what happened to the safeguarding
power of entry?
David Hewitt
David Hewitt is a Visiting Fellow
of Northumbria University and
Bournemouth University,
based in Blackpool, UK.
Abstract
Purpose – This paper aims to consider the recent consultation on a new safeguarding power of entry and
seeks to provide a critique of the government’s conclusions in that regard.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper analyses the report of the consultation exercise and sets
it against those of earlier, comparable ones.
Findings – The government’s conclusions were supported by only a minority of respondents. A majority
of respondents, and an overwhelming majority of health and social care professionals, came to a very
different conclusion.
Originality/value – This is believed to be the first time the government’sconclusions have been analysed in
this way or placed in their present context.
Keywords Safeguarding, Care and Support Draft Bill, National Assistance Act, No Secrets, Power of entry
Paper type General review
Introduction
The government has decided that there will not be a new safeguarding power of entry.
If what it has said is correct, there will soon be no such power at all. There was, it is true,
evidence to support the decision, but that evidence was not at all what the government
has subsequently come to suggest. The evidence seems, in fact, to support introduction of
a new power.
The government’s decision came at the end of a consultation exercise linked to the Care and
Support Draft Bill and its progress through Parliament. Amongst other things, the draft
Bill contains a clause requiring local authorities to make enquiries in suspected safeguarding
cases (HM Government (HMG), 2012a, clause 34(1)). Any new power would have facilitated
performance of that duty (HMG, 2013, paragraph 2).
The possibility of a new power of entry had, in fact, been discussed for much of the last decade,
once it became apparent that a similar power, contained in the National Assistance Act, 1948
(NAA); HM Government (1948) was no longer tenable.
The NAA power permits certain people, who are in need of care and attention, to be removed
from their place of residence and detained in a place of safety, conceivably for weeks or even
months on end. In 2000, however, the Department of Health (DoH) suggested that continued
use of that power would breach Articles 5(1), 5(4) and 8 of the European Convention on Human
Rights (Hewitt, 2002). Though it has not yet been abolished, the NAA power is now widely
assumed to have fallen into desuetude.
DOI 10.1108/JAP-09-2013-0040 VOL. 16 NO. 1 2014, pp. 41-51, CEmerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 1466-8203
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THE JOURNAL OF ADULT PROTECTION
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PAGE 41
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