Agreed that the minutes of the meeting held on 24 January 2014 be confirmed.

Matters Arising

Minute 41 – Audit.  It was reported that no contact had been made with the Devon Audit Partnership.  This action needs to be followed up.

In accordance with the code, declarations of interest were made by Mandy Cox, Geoff Baines and Phil Smale are also members of the Children Safeguarding Board.

The Chair, Jim Gould announced his retirement as Chair of the Safeguarding Adults and Children in September.  The post of Independent Chair for Safeguarding Adults would be advertised this month.  The Board gave thanks to Jim and wished him a happy retirement.

Jim Gould, Chair provided the board with an update on the Care Home Management Review.  It was reported that the action plan would be updated and the board at its next meeting would receive a further update and final report.

Martin Cordy, NEW Devon CCG provided the Board with a presentation on the process for health based alerts.  It was reported that the number of alerts across the CCG –

·         Western Locality - 60 %

·         North/Eastern Locality – 40%

The Board would receive an update on the roll out of the pilot for Plymouth at the next meeting.  They would be focussing on the most serious safeguarding alerts and would look to change systems and processes quickly.

Discussions took place on the different levels of practice against all 4 local authority areas.  A meeting was taking place next week to get some consistency and to unpick the quality of the referral and increasing number of assumptions made by social workers assuming that some GPs didn’t provide the right level of care.

There needs to be a clear pathway with care and to stop referrals unless we get a quality referral.  There needs to be some agreement on the quality of the response and clarity of the process locally and the LATs role to support this.  There needs to be a link with primary care and safeguarding and this is a window the Board needs to address.

The Board requested a report on the following themes –

1.         when an alert is reported, the person who made the alert does not hear anything back;

2.         residential nursing homes and non-admissions – partners and local arrangements;

3.         referring to GPs as independent businesses and how to engage and get leverage with these services.

It was also reported that GPs had to be level 3 trained for safeguarding and CQC requirements.

Jane Elliot Toncic provided the Board with an update on Serious Self Neglect (SSN). It was reported that –

·         work was on-going;

·         sub-groups were now in place;

·         Links had been made with public health colleagues;

·         Creation of a ‘register’ of people considered at high risk of harm across the city.

Housing providers were a rich source of information to identify those with SSN and it was also highlighted that the terminology was changing as a result of the Care Bill.  A review of SSN was linked to on-line policy in November.

It had taken a while to see neglect as abuse for children and a similar process would follow for adults.  There was guidance available on thresholds and did not want staff to feel they had made the wrong decision.  There needs to be a multi-agency approach to share and work together and VARM addresses this.

Jenny Winslade provided the Board with an update on the Frances Report.  There were 177 recommendations from the Francis Report and would look at -

·         taking a multi-agency approach and initial benchmarking around recommendations;

·         creating a collective responsibility;

·         focussing on the staff experience.  If that declines care of patients will decline;

·         partnering with John Lewis on their approach to staff experiences;

·         Summit taking place on 29 May 2014 – looking at a person centred approach.

Julian Mouland provided the Board with an update from the Serious Case Review (SCR) Subgroup.  The new logo was shared with the Board and would now feature on all future correspondence.   The SCR Subgroup had met twice and were looking at an on-going case.  It was reported that the Police were unable to complete the IMR but was working process and they were keeping the family informed of the delays.

They were seeking advice from the Race Equality Council on the case on how they could best advise the panel and be objective.  They wanted to ensure that the review of the case addresses the concerns for the family.

It was highlighted that the Local Safeguarding Children Board had set up an Equality and Diversity Group, with an Equality and Diversity Champion on each of their sub groups.  It was raised whether the Safeguarding Adults Board could link to this group?

It was reported that Public Health sit on the Devon Safeguarding Adults Board and whether an invitation should be sent to Kelechi Nnoaham, Director for Public Health to attend future meetings.

This item was deferred to the next meeting.

Jane Elliot Toncic provided the Board with a performance update on the abuse of vulnerable adults (AVA).  It was reported that they were looking to re-establish the Monitoring Sub Group to look at the qualitative information.

It was reported that 23% of safeguarding alerts were substantiated.  They looking at what other data needed to be captured and it was highlighted that the figures were the corporate picture and not individual picture.

Agreed that Geoff Baines to pull together a task and finish to scope together what should be monitored and to include Julian Mouland and Martin Cordy.

Julian Mouland provided the Board with an overview of the Staff Survey results.  It was reported that the results were for Plymouth City Council staff only.   The CCG had undertaken a similar survey with their staff.  The Board wanted assurances that all organisations were doing the same to address the issues and give peer challenge to each other if issues were not addressed.

Julian also raised that after receiving feedback on the Alerter Training, this session was reduced to ½ day.  This resulted in an increased in numbers of people attending the training.

The Chair, Jim Gould stated that Plymouth City Council currently fund 66% towards the budget and other partners to contribute the rest.

Agreed that Dave Simpkins to make contact with partners for contributions towards the Safeguarding Adults Board budget 2014-15.

There were no items of exempt business.