Strategic Plan 2023 to 2026. Dorset and BCP Safeguarding Adults Boards "Making Safeguarding Everyone's Business"

The Care Act 2014 sets out the specific functions of SABs. One of these is that they must publish a strategic plan for each financial year that sets how it will meet its main objectives and what Board members will do to achieve these objectives. The plan must be developed with local community involvement, and the Board must consult the local Healthwatch organisation. 

Achievements and delivery against the strategic plan will be reported in each SAB Annual Report.
 

The Care and Support Statutory Guidance gives more detail about how SABs should meet the requirements of the Care Act 2014.  DBCPSABs’ Adult Safeguarding Policy and Procedures DBCPSABs Multi-agency Safeguarding Adults Policy and DBCPSABs Multi-Agency Safeguarding Adults Procedures detail how we will respond to safeguarding concerns and set out how it will address these requirements:

• develop preventative strategies that aim to reduce instances of abuse and neglect in its area
• develop strategies to deal with the impact of issues of race, ethnicity, religion, gender and gender orientation, sexual orientation, age, disadvantage and disability on abuse and neglect 
• promote multi-agency training, seek assurance about the quality of partners’ training in line with the DBCPSAB Training Strategy and consider any specialist training that may be required e.g., to consider any scope to jointly commission training with other partnerships, such as the Community Safety Partnership or to develop training in line with themes of learning emanating from Safeguarding Adults Reviews. 
   

The DBCPSABs strategy seeks to align itself more effectively with people and with those with lived experience of safeguarding interventions, involving them in the Boards’ work through our Community Engagement Group.

The strategy was developed in consultation with all DBCPSAB members  and reviewed annually by Members.  The strategy informs the annual work programme and business plan of the Boards and each of its subgroups and takes account of key strategic challenges being faced locally and nationally, as well as being informed by safeguarding adult specific data and trends across the Pan-Dorset region. 

The strategy sets out how we intend to achieve each of the key priorities (detailed below) and sets out a programme for three years. 

This current strategy updates and replaces the three-year strategic plan for March 2021 - 24. This new plan (effective from June 2023 to May 2026) will ensure continued work and development in key areas with a renewed focus.

At the March 2023 Development Session, the plan was reviewed by all Board Partners who agreed that active horizon scanning would be beneficial to our preventative work. This change and the addition of a new subgroup is included in this revised plan. 

The strategic plan sets out an intention for ensuring that ‘Safeguarding is Everyone’s Business” So, everyone - Board Members, all professionals (especially those working on the front line of services), and the public are clear about what we want to do and how we can work together to make it happen.  

We have reviewed the outcomes of the previous 3-year strategic plan and accompanying work plans and have incorporated some of these into this strategic plan to enable progress to be maintained.  
 

The Boards bring together all public sector and voluntary/ community sector agencies across Dorset and BCP with the aim of working together to protect adults at risk from abuse, harm, or neglect. We achieve this through joined up strategic leadership and collective accountability.

Whilst Dorset and Bournemouth, Christchurch & Poole retain separate Boards; both Boards join together for meetings and share subgroups.  Where specific place-based work is identified each local area will establish separate task-specific arrangements for working/ governance within its own area to focus on this work. 

The boards have an Executive Group.  Out of that there are four subgroups:

• Quality Assurance Subgroup
• Safeguarding Adults Review Subgroup
• Community Engagement Group
• MCA/LPS Subgroup

Areas of collaboration identified by subgroups - task and finish groups established to complete activity.

The boards continue to follow the four strategic aims which underpin all our work:

• effective prevention
• effective protection
• effective learning
• effective governance

At the core of our strategy is ensuring we listen and respond to the voices of people who may be at risk and who experience safeguarding interventions. We aim to deliver all communication in an accessible way appropriate to the people who receive it and will seek assurance that our partners are doing the same:

• continued development with partners of preventative work in safeguarding
• continuing to seek assurance on safeguarding practice across system partners
• assurance on delivery of "Making Safeguarding Personal"

This will feature in all our work, reports to the Boards, audits, reviews, and general assurance.  We will:

• review learning from Safeguarding Adults Reviews (SARs) and SARs from other Boards and will revisit thematic learning from SARs, Learning Disability Mortality Reviews (LeDeR) and other statutory reviews in order to inform preventative work with adults with care and support needs
• always take account of the experiences of people who use services or receive safeguarding interventions by reflecting on the learning from the Community Engagement Group and by receiving personal safeguarding stories at our Board meetings to inform preventative work
• seek assurance on an annual basis from partners that learning is embedded in the work of all frontline staff in all services
• ensure that each of the Boards’ subgroups are able to provide evidence of system learning and working to deliver preventative work
• ensure that there is good multi agency working with a contextual safeguarding approach to preventative work with people who are homeless
• use safeguarding data from all partners which enables the Boards to identify trends to influence preventative work across all partners
• horizon scanning to be aware of emerging issues that may impact safeguarding work
   

We will:

• continuously develop how the Boards receive assurance as governance frameworks evolve across every statutory partner.  This will be developed through effective partnership working
• ensure that the Quality Assurance Subgroup is able to provide the Boards with evidence that data is understood and used to identify themes that each of our partners can progress in their safeguarding work
• ensure that the QA subgroup audit programme is understood by all partners and that the outcomes of audits are considered by the Board
• work in partnership across the safeguarding children and community safety partnerships to ensure common understanding of each other’s work and avoid duplication
• work closely with Safeguarding Children’s Partnership and with all our partners to ensure that the complexities of Transitional Safeguarding are considered and understood
• seek assurance on delivery of safe and person-centred practice in private mental health hospitals and for placements of people outside our area – through understanding the extent of commissioned out of area placements and the quality assurance mechanisms which are in place; together with service review which safeguards and protects people needing support from these (often specialist) services
• continue to seek assurance that practitioners in all agencies ‘Think Family’ and embed this in practice
• continue to seek assurance on health and social care practice and provider care quality – by better understanding commissioned services by NHS and social care; through working in partnership with people (through Healthwatch) and with the regulator (CQC).  We will receive assurance through having oversight, through single and multi-agency audit which shows how risk is identified and responded to.  We will hold annual ‘Provider & Safeguarding Events’
• continue to seek assurance that when safeguarding concerns are considered by adult social care services that there is good information sharing within the safeguarding system 
• seek assurance that the system is working to safeguard people via the new national policing initiative, ‘Right Care, Right Person’
• seek assurance across our system on application of the Mental Capacity Act and readiness for delivery of the proposed Liberty Protection Safeguards, through establishment of a new subgroup
   

Assurance on delivery of ‘Making Safeguarding Personal’:

• we will seek assurance from all partners that Making Safeguarding Personal (MSP) is embedded throughout all the safeguarding work that they do. We will do this by asking for evidence that people have the opportunity to express their outcomes at every stage in their safeguarding journey
• we will involve people in the work we do – through reviewing how we communicate more widely with people and ensuring we listen to the voices of those who have experienced safeguarding interventions.  We will deliver our communication/engagement strategy to the widest audience with the support of the voluntary and community sector through our Community Engagement Subgroup
• ensure that the Quality Assurance Subgroup continues to audit application of MSP and provides the Board with data which evidences that application of MSP is embedded 
• in commissioning SARs we will always ensure that delivery of MSP is tested and where this is not the case ensure that learning reflects this; that agencies provide assurance on continuous improvements around delivery of MSP
   

The Boards have an overarching business/ workplan to be delivered in each year, with allocated work from the 3-year strategy, as agreed by board members. The workplan provides the detail about how we will achieve our strategic aims and objectives. This is reviewed and monitored at each quarterly board meeting. In addition, each subgroup will also develop and progress a workplan which complements and provides a more task-based approach to specific actions. 

The subgroups are the engine room of the Boards and therefore pivotal to ensuring that the objectives outlined in the strategic plan, together with associated outcomes, are achieved. Each subgroup reports progress to the Board on a quarterly basis. During the 2023-2024 reporting year, the subgroups were refreshed. A new MCA/LPS subgroup was agreed in December 2023 to focus on this key area. The structure flowchart has been adapted to reflect this.

The QA subgroup will also seek to identify through the review of data and oversight of practice audit, particular thematic issues which may require additional focus. Membership of each subgroup will reflect a range of agencies across Dorset and BCP and will include individuals with specialist knowledge or ability to add the required skill to achieving the planned objectives.  The Community Reference subgroup through engagement with the community and voluntary sector reaches a wide audience and brings the valuable experience of those who have received safeguarding interventions.

In 2022-23 the Boards published a single annual report. From 2023-24 onwards the Boards will each publish their own annual report which will highlight the Boards’ achievements and outline how the strategic plan has been delivered. 

The Boards will measure progress of the strategic plan and its impact at each quarterly Board meeting. The Boards’ workplan will inform the activity carried out by each of the subgroups which will report back to the Boards on progress, develop and maintain its own workplan to ensure focus and delivery of agreed objectives. The workplan will show what activity is necessary, why it is important, how it will be achieved and how we know when it has been achieved.

Areas of collaboration will be identified, and joint work will also be undertaken through the establishment of task and finish working groups where required. This will ensure our approach is streamlined and enable us to focus on real time activity. Positive working relationships with partners, with proactive partner contributions will be key to our success. Ensuring people are consulted about the Boards’ work and the difference it makes to them is vital to measuring our impact and ensure that ‘Making Safeguarding Personal’ (MSP) principles are at the heart of all we do. 

An overview of achievements and outcomes will be detailed in the Boards’ annual report and shared at the end of each reporting year.

• Strategic Plan: Checked at quarterly SAB meeting
• Board Workplan: Informs activity of subgroups
• Subgroup workplans: Report on progress, maintain workplans
• SAB and subgroup discussions: Areas of collaboration identified, task and finish groups
• Annual Report: Overview of achievements and outcomes shared
• streamlined approach
• real time activity
• positive working relationships
• consult with people
• measure impact
• making safeguarding personal at the heart of everything we do