Adult safeguarding

North East Lincs Care Trust Plus

• Brought together an “action research” community group
• Over 20 people actively engaged in the quality of care
• An event and 4 videos initiated and completed by the community

This is the second major piece of work that I have been asked to complete for this trust; the first was the award-winning Open Door service design that you can read about here. This project grew out of a recognition that changes to adult safeguarding services – to comply with new legislation and regulation – should reflect the needs and beliefs of the local community.

I was asked initially to investigate the level of community interest in adult safeguarding. I reported back saying ‘very few people are interested in adult safeguarding, but nearly everyone is profoundly concerned about the care that their relatives receive’. I was then asked to build a community group based on this premise.

The Community Voice group meets formally every month but the key members probably meet every week. They raise issues about the quality of care that get fed directly into the local Adult Safeguarding Board, but they also do things that they believe to be important and the trust supports them in this.

For example, they organised an event to raise awareness of the issue of social isolation. They arranged for more than 30 services to promote what they do, the press, local MP and mayor attended and hundreds of local people visited the stalls and exhibits. Here is the video of the event...

Recently they have decided to create a series of videos to raise awareness of the need for seniors to prepare for severe winter weather. The video below was scripted and acted by members of the group who then distributed it to surgeries and waiting rooms across the district.

My role has been to set up and catalyse the group, to provide them with a bit of energy now and again, and help them to realise that there is very little that they can’t do if they put their minds to it.