Safeguarding Adult Reviews (SARs)

Safeguarding Adults Boards have a duty be assured that local safeguarding arrangements are in place as defined by the Care Act 2014 and statutory guidance.  Part of this duty is to carry out a Safeguarding Adult Review (SAR) when an adult at risk dies as a result of abuse or neglect, whether known or suspected, or is still alive but has experienced serious abuse or neglect and; there are concerns that partner agencies could have worked more effectively to protect the adult.

The purpose of a SAR is to promote effective learning and improvement action to prevent future deaths or serious harm occurring again. The aim is that lessons can be learned from a case and those lessons applied to future cases to prevent similar harm happening again.

Key themes arising from recent Walsall reviews

These included:

• the need to embed a person centred approach to practice
• full compliance with the care act legislation and mental capacity act, including undertaking capacity assessments and recording the outcome
• the need to continuously try to engage with service users who present as ‘non compliant’ or ‘difficult’
• quality monitoring of learning disability homes
• inter-local authority protocol when individuals are placed in the local area by another local authority
• the need to undertake sound risk assessments for long term conditions