The Care Act 2014. The Care Act is a key piece of legislation for social care and safeguarding. The Act set out for the first time, in law, the role and purpose of Safeguarding Adult Boards (SABs), making these statutory bodies, and made safeguarding adults a statutory duty of local authorities. While doing this it gave safeguarding adult boards specific powers to request information. It also made it a duty of local authorities, and their partners, to co-operate with each other in what it terms both general and specific cases relating to individuals’ care and support. This duty to co-operate will apply to the sharing of information along with other forms of co-operation.
The Care Act 2014. Adult safeguarding is the process of protecting adults with care and support needs from abuse or neglect (hereafter referred to as “adults”). It is an important part of what many public services do, but the key responsibility is with local authorities in partnership with the police and the NHS. The Care Act 2014 puts adult safeguarding on a legal footing and from April 2015 each local authority must: • Make enquiries, or ensure others do so, if it believes an adult is subject to, or at risk of, abuse or neglect. An enquiry should establish whether any action needs to be taken to stop or prevent abuse or neglect, and if so, by whom. • Set up a Safeguarding Adults Board (SAB) with core membership from the local authority, the Police and the NHS (specifically the local Clinical Commissioning Group/s) and the power to include other relevant bodies. • Arrange, where appropriate, for an independent advocate to represent and support an adult who is the subject of a safeguarding enquiry or Safeguarding Adult Review (SAR) where the adult has ‘substantial difficulty’ in being involved in the process and where there is no other appropriate adult to help them. • Cooperate with each of its relevant partners in order to protect adults experiencing or at risk of abuse or neglect.
The Care Act 2014. Sections 6 and 7 of the Care Act 2014 impose a general duty of co-operation between the local authority and other organisations (including NHS bodies) providing care and support. This includes a duty on the local authority itself to ensure co-operation between its adult care and support, housing, public health and children's services.
