Ensuring that older people are safeguarded and protected has been a key focus of my work as Commissioner, and I have worked with professionals across our public services to grow their knowledge and understanding of safeguarding issues and how these can be addressed.
I have welcomed the aspiration of the Social Services and Wellbeing (Wales) Act 2014 to improve the safeguarding of adults at risk of abuse and neglect by placing safeguarding on a statutory footing and placing new duties on statutory agencies, and wanted to review the difference the Act is making to the safeguarding work of Health Boards.
I therefore wrote to Health Boards in June 2017, asking them to participate in a review to determine how effectively they are responding to their new duties relating to adult safeguarding arising from the Act, specifically the requirements under Sections 7 and 10.
All seven of the Health Boards in Wales, as well as the Velindre NHS Trust, participated and contributed very positively to this review. They are referred to collectively as ‘Health Boards’ in the report. The review focuses on the safeguarding of older people and it does not include other aspects of safeguarding with which Health Board safeguarding teams are also concerned (child safeguarding, violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence, hate crime, modern slavery, counter-terrorism and Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards).
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