How Northumberland has been keeping vulnerable adults safe during pandemic

Chiefs say they have been working as hard as ever to look out for vulnerable adults in Northumberland since the pandemic began

The latest annual report of the North Tyneside and Northumberland Safeguarding Adults Board (SAB) was presented to the Tuesday, January 12, meeting of Northumberland County Council’s health and wellbeing committee.

Paula Mead, the independent chair of the SAB, said: “Despite the constraints of lockdown, our key message to partners has still been that safeguarding duties continue to apply completely, maybe even more so in fact.

“During the first lockdown, we convened weekly meetings with partners to gain their assurances then they became fortnightly then monthly.

“We set up a Covid-specific risk register so we could ask partners to identify what the risks were around Covid so that we could have their mitigations and be assured that things were being done to manage those risks.”

The report also stated: ‘It is recognised that some individuals have been increasingly vulnerable and at risk from abuse during this time, and a wide range of information and resources have been circulated to SAB members and our communities to raise awareness and signpost to support.’

It added: ‘To date, there have been many lessons learned, particularly in relation to virtual meetings and training, and the use of partnership meetings to progress local and SAB priorities and themes.

‘The impact of, and recovery from Covid-19, will continue to be a primary area of focus for the SAB over the next year, planning for increased demand, and looking at local and national themes that emerge to inform our practice and learning.’

In relation to 2019-20, the year formally covered by the annual report, there was an 11% increase in adult concern notifications and a 23% rise in safeguarding adults inquiries, compared to the previous year.

Ms Mead said: “We see that as quite a positive thing in one sense, in that things are being found, discovered, looked at and reported.

“We have concerns if these drop and that’s something we’ve been watching over the last year in the context of Covid.”

The report to councillors added that the increases ‘reflect the ongoing development of the Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH), which has led to more consistent, appropriate and proportionate decision-making’.

The continued development of the MASH – which unlike many others is a joint adult and children’s arrangement in Northumberland – is one of the positive actions highlighted in the annual report.

A MASH brings together professionals from a range of agencies and ‘is designed to facilitate timely information-sharing and decision-making on a multi-agency basis, which is key to meeting the SAB objectives’.

Providing more information on reported incidents, Ms Mead said: “The majority of abuse is something that’s been happening in people’s own homes, that’s the majority of cases that have been investigated, but there have been others as well in nursing and care homes.

“The main category is physical abuse, but there’s also psychological abuse, neglect and other types, for example, financial, but the majority that have been reported have been physical abuse.”

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