This Practice Guidance has been developed by Essex organisational Safeguarding Team and was requested by the Director of Safeguarding and Quality Assurance.

To ensure the safety and wellbeing of those adults with care and support needs at risk of abuse and neglect, it is important that the threshold for reporting is set at the right level. The aim of this Guidance is to assist organisations and practitioners in deciding when to initiate Safeguarding Adults Procedures.

The Guidance should be read in conjunction with the SET guidelines for safeguarding.  It is the responsibility of managers in statutory and non-statutory organisations to ensure that their staff teams are familiar with the procedures within this and the SET Guidance.

This Guidance includes definitions of an adult at risk of abuse in Section 3. If the thresholds set out in these definitions are not met, then there is no requirement to raise a safeguarding adult concern.

Ten areas where greater clarity is needed about when to raise a Safeguarding Adult Concern have been considered and are as follows:

• Falls
• Incidents between adults at risk
• Nutrition and hydration
• Pressure area care
• Missed domiciliary home Care visits
• Medication errors
• Moving and handling
• Poor discharge from hospital
• Financial concerns
• Self-neglect

Each of these Sections includes information about the specific issue.

The guidance has been aligned with the Adult Safeguarding Best Practice Guidance for Providers of Healthcare in East Anglia and Essex (October 2018) produced by the NHS Eastern Regional Safeguarding Adults Forum

Acknowledgement:

Essex Adult Safeguarding would like to acknowledge Doncaster and Knowsley Safeguarding Adults Board for supporting us by sharing their guidance with us, from which this guidance was developed.