Policy paper

Safeguarding strategy 2019 to 2025: Office of the Public Guardian

Updated 29 April 2019

Applies to England and Wales

• Publication for Northern Ireland
• Publication for Scotland

Safeguarding is everyone’s business.

The Office of the Public Guardian (OPG) has a role in supporting and providing safeguarding to the adults at risk who we come into contact with.

We support the principle that, even if our safeguarding duties do not apply, it’s our business to work with the right agencies, to protect adults at risk.

This strategy sets out how we will achieve this.

The Office of the Public Guardian

OPG has an important role in protecting people in England and Wales who do not have the mental capacity to make health and financial decisions for themselves.

We support the Public Guardian in carrying out the legal functions of the Mental Capacity Act (MCA) 2005.

The Public Guardian’s legal duty is to:

• supervise deputies appointed by the Court of Protection
• register lasting and enduring powers of attorney (LPAs and EPAs)
• keep a register of LPAs, EPAs, and deputy court orders
• deal with concerns about deputies and registered attorneys

The MCA has 5 principles which are at the heart of everything we do. The principles are:

1. Assume someone has mental capacity unless there’s evidence otherwise
2. Do not treat someone as incapable of making a decision unless you’ve taken all reasonable steps to help them make it
3. Making unwise decisions is not a sign that someone lacks mental capacity
4. Always act in the best interests of someone who has lost mental capacity
5. Before making a decision on someone’s behalf, make sure that the outcome is achieved in a way that’s less restrictive to their rights and freedoms

What is safeguarding?

The Care Act 2014 and the Social Services and Wellbeing Act (Wales) 2014 define safeguarding as protecting an adult’s right to live in safety, free from abuse and neglect. The acts set out a legal framework for how local authorities and other agencies should protect adults at risk of abuse or neglect.

We have a legal duty to deal with all concerns made to us about people with LPAs, EPAs, or deputy court orders.

Sometimes these will be safeguarding concerns that we have the power to deal with. But if we become aware of a safeguarding risk which we do not have the legal power to resolve, we’ll work with other agencies who have a safeguarding duty to protect the person.

Background

Our safeguarding policy shows that we’re committed to working with safeguarding partners, where necessary, to investigate concerns and prevent or end abuse.

We’ve grown since we published the policy in 2015. More adults than ever now have a registered LPA, EPA or deputy court order from the Court of Protection.

But we need to do more to tell other organisations what we do, so they can work with us to protect people at risk of abuse or neglect.

Our vision for safeguarding

We plan to improve the safeguarding service we offer our users.

We want to become an important safeguarding partner that protects people who lack mental capacity, giving them the guidance and services they need to plan for their future.

We have 5 goals to help us achieve this:

1. Help our safeguarding partners understand more about what we do
2. Work more closely with safeguarding partners
3. ‘No wrong door’ approach for all safeguarding concerns
4. Working culture which puts the safeguarding needs of the user first
5. Greater support for our users

1. Help our safeguarding partners understand more about what we do

OPG does not usually deal with users face to face. To make sure that we’re able to provide appropriate safeguarding to our users, it’s important that our safeguarding partners understand what we do.

Safeguarding partners will know that our role in safeguarding our users is to:

• prevent abuse from happening
• investigate safeguarding concerns reported to us which fall under our legal responsibility
• remedy concerns which fall under our legal responsibility, and work with other organisations when they do not

To offer better protection to adults who may lack mental capacity, safeguarding partners should understand:

• when to look for LPAs, EPAs, and deputy court orders
• what their legal responsibility is to speak to the attorney or deputy - for instance, when someone needs to give consent for medical treatment
• how to check whether an LPA, EPA, or deputy court order has been registered by OPG
• how to search our registers to find out if someone has a registered LPA, EPA, or deputy court order
• when to report safeguarding concerns to us for investigation and further action

To do this, we’ll:

• work with safeguarding partners to help them understand what we do
• give safeguarding partners guidance to share with people working with those who have lost mental capacity
• make videos on our role and responsibilities for agencies to use in training
• hold events such as webinars and safeguarding roundtables
• work closely with safeguarding leads in the NHS so that frontline doctors and nurses can check that LPAs, EPAs, and deputy court orders are valid
• work closely with safeguarding leads in local authorities to make sure care professionals understand what we do

2. Work more closely with safeguarding partners

We’ll always look for ways to work closely with safeguarding partners to improve the safeguarding service that is being offered. We believe that understanding what we do will help safeguarding partners in their role.

People working in the adult social care sector, the health sector and the police will know when, and how, to report a safeguarding concern to us. We’ll also know when to report safeguarding concerns to them.

People working with adults who have lost mental capacity will understand the legal duties of an attorney or deputy and contact us when they believe that the attorney or deputy is not following the 5 principles of the MCA.

We’ll have close links with Safeguarding Adult Boards (SABs). When SABs run a Safeguarding Adults Review, we’ll encourage them to check if the adult at risk had a registered LPA, EPA, or deputy court order. We’ll also work with other government departments to give greater protection to adults with care and support needs.

To do this, we’ll:

• work with the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS) and ADSS-Cymru to tell them about our role
• work with the National Network for Chairs of Safeguarding Adults Boards so that SABs are more aware of what we do
• attend cross-government forums and meetings to tell them about what we do and look for ways to work together
• work with influential academic bodies, such as the National Centre for Post Qualifying Social Work (NCPQSW) and The College of Social Work, to make training material for professionals
• give agencies training materials to show their people when to contact us and how we can help

3. ‘No wrong door’ approach for all safeguarding concerns

We do not ignore signs of abuse or neglect. Our ‘no wrong door’ approach to safeguarding means that we’ll listen to all safeguarding concerns about adults and children who are at risk, not just the ones that fall under our area of responsibility.

If someone reports a safeguarding concern which we do not have the legal powers to investigate, we’ll apply the principles of Making Safeguarding Personal and make sure that the safeguarding concern is sent to the right agency.

For example, if a Court of Protection visitor (a member of staff who meets with our users face to face) carries out a mental capacity assessment at a client’s or donor’s home but has a concern about a safeguarding issue (for example, hoarding or self-neglect), the visitor will refer this safeguarding concern to the person’s local authority.

To do this, we’ll:

• create safeguarding learning for our people to complete
• improve the guidance and support available on GOV.UK to help people who wish to report a safeguarding concern to us
• develop a new risk assessment process based on the threat to the individual
• make sure that our people read and follow our safeguarding policy
• encourage a working culture where safeguarding the user comes first

4. Working culture which puts the safeguarding needs of the user first

We want a working environment which protects and supports our users. ‘Making Safeguarding Personal’ is an important principle that we support.

We aim to develop an approach to safeguarding that means we put our users first and involve them as much as possible throughout the safeguarding process.

We’ll carry out a long-term programme of work (our ‘safeguarding model’) to improve internal processes and working culture to offer better protection to our users.

The safeguarding model will make sure that our people understand the role that they play in safeguarding our users. It’ll create a working culture that puts safeguarding and the user first.

Our senior leaders will encourage a working culture which brings attention to quality service, intervention and protection for adults who may lack mental capacity.

To do this, we’ll:

• encourage our people to volunteer with charities who work with adults who lack mental capacity
• hire a senior safeguarding practitioner to give expert advice on handling safeguarding concerns, training and practice
• hold regular safeguarding learning events to make sure that our people understand their role in safeguarding our users
• make sure our people complete safeguarding e-learning so that everyone at OPG understands what they should do if someone reports a concern

5. Greater support for our users

We believe that all adults over the age of 18 should make an LPA so that someone they trust can make decisions for them in case they lose mental capacity.

We want to lower the average age of our users and help more people from different backgrounds make LPAs.

We’ll improve our online services, to make applying to register an LPA easier and more accessible.

We’ll offer more guidance to people who are thinking about making an LPA and to those named on one – for example, certificate providers and attorneys.

We’ll give more support to attorneys and deputies after registration and will play a greater role in supported decision making.

To do this, we’ll:

• run a national awareness campaign ‘Your Voice, Your Decision’ to encourage more people to plan for their future
• look for ways to make applying to register an LPA a fully online service to make it easier for our users
• research how we can give more support to people who have lost mental capacity to make their own decisions

How we’ll check the success of our safeguarding strategy

We’ll carry out research from 2020 to 2021 to find out if people who work to safeguard adults at risk know more about us than they do now. We’ll also look at internal data to understand if we’re meeting our goals. This’ll show us the benefit of this strategy and help us to plan the next stage of work.

We’ll publish annual reports to show the work we’re doing to meet our goals.