The right to be safe does not diminish with age
National Safeguarding Week is an important opportunity to raise awareness of abuse, neglect and exploitation, to share learning and to recognise the vital work taking place across Wales to keep people safe.
But it should also prompt us to ask some difficult questions.
Every older person has the same right to live free from abuse, neglect and exploitation as everyone else. That right does not diminish with age, ill health or disability, or because someone relies on others for care and support.
Yet we cannot assume that these rights are always realised equally in practice.
Older people can experience every form of abuse, including domestic abuse, sexual violence, coercive control, financial exploitation and neglect. They may also face particular barriers to recognising abuse, disclosing what is happening or accessing the support they need.
For me, one of the tests of our safeguarding system should therefore be simple:
If a younger person were experiencing the same circumstances, would we recognise the harm in the same way, respond with the same urgency and offer the same access to support and justice?
If we cannot confidently answer yes, then we have not yet achieved parity.
Recognising what we fail to see
Ageism can have a profound effect on how we recognise and respond to abuse.
It does not always manifest itself through explicit discrimination. Sometimes it is reflected in what we fail to see.
Changes in behaviour may be attributed to ageing, ill health or dementia rather than fear, distress or trauma. Controlling behaviour can be mistaken for care. Neglect may be tolerated because alternatives are limited. We may simply fail to consider that an older person could be experiencing domestic or sexual abuse.
Over the past year, I have continued to work with organisations across Wales to examine older people’s experiences of sexual violence and abuse.
This remains a particularly hidden and poorly understood form of abuse. Shame, embarrassment, generational attitudes and fear of not being believed may stop an older person from disclosing what has happened to them. Abuse may have happened many years ago but continue to affect someone’s life today. For others, abuse begins or continues in later life.
Through my Stopping Abuse Action Group, I have worked with organisations across safeguarding, health and social care, criminal justice and specialist services to explore what needs to change.
A clear message from that work is that older people need to be visible throughout the pathway: in prevention and awareness raising, in practitioners’ understanding of risk, and in access to specialist support, recovery and justice.
We cannot respond effectively to harm that we do not see.
Listening to older people
Recognising abuse is only the beginning. Good safeguarding must also be about listening to the person and understanding what matters to them.
Safeguarding should not simply be something done to someone. It should be done with them.
This is particularly important because safeguarding decisions can fundamentally alter someone’s life, including their relationships, living arrangements, independence and the support they receive.
Having a voice in those circumstances is not an optional extra.
That is why advocacy matters.
I am currently using my legal powers as Older People’s Commissioner for Wales to examine the advocacy available to older people, with particular attention to safeguarding. I want to understand whether older people can access advocacy when they need it, whether it is offered early enough to make a difference, and whether current arrangements enable older people’s voices to be heard consistently.
Ultimately, successful safeguarding cannot be measured simply by referrals made, processes completed or plans produced.
We need to ask what changed for the person.
Did they feel heard and believed? Did they understand what was happening?
Were they supported to exercise choice? Did they receive the support they needed?
And, most importantly, are they safer?
From reform to real change
This is an important moment for safeguarding in Wales.
The Welsh Government’s wider programme of social care reform now places prevention, safeguarding and strong communities among the foundations for the future of social care. Alongside this, proposed safeguarding reforms, including a National Safeguarding Plan, provide an important opportunity for stronger national leadership, better evidence and intelligence, greater consistency and clearer accountability.
I welcome that direction.
But the test of reform cannot simply be whether new structures are established or plans are published.
We need to be able to see a clear line from ambition, to action, to timescale, to accountability and, ultimately, to better outcomes for people.
Older people must be visible within that process. We need data and evidence that allow us to understand their experiences and outcomes, including the different experiences of older people rather than treating them as a single homogeneous group.
And older people’s lived experience should help to shape not only the development of safeguarding reform, but its implementation and how we judge whether it is working. That must include deliberate efforts to hear from people whose voices are too often least heard.
The refresh of the Violence Against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence Strategy provides another important opportunity. Older people’s experiences of domestic abuse and sexual violence need to be fully recognised within national policy and reflected in the services and support available.
Are older people safer?
There is much positive work taking place across Wales, and I know the commitment of safeguarding professionals and organisations to keeping older people safe.
But National Safeguarding Week should also provide an opportunity to challenge ourselves.
Are older people sufficiently visible in our safeguarding priorities, evidence and services?
Do we recognise harm and respond with the same seriousness and urgency whatever a person’s age?
Can older people access advocacy, specialist support and justice when they need them?
Are lessons from safeguarding reviews and other evidence actually changing practice?
Are we closing the loop from learning, to action, to changed practice and better outcomes?
And, above all, do older people themselves tell us that they are heard, supported and safer?
Older people do not have a lesser right to safety because of their age.
So, for me, the ambition must be clear:
Same rights. Same urgency. Same access to support and justice.
National Safeguarding Week is an opportunity not simply to reaffirm our commitment to those principles, but to ask whether older people across Wales are experiencing them in practice.
That is the standard we should set.
And it is the standard against which our progress should be judged.
