Safeguarding Adult Reviews

In some situations, safeguarding adults boards are required to conduct Safeguarding Adult Reviews. This is normally where an adult with care and support needs is seriously harmed or has died as a result of abuse or neglect and there are concerns about how local organisations have worked together to protect the adult.

What is a Safeguarding Adults Review (also known as a 'SAR')?

A Safeguarding Adults Review looks at how local organisations worked together to look after the adult at risk at the centre of the review. The review considers what was done, what worked well, what lessons can be learned for the future and what changes may need to be made.

A Safeguarding Adult Review (SAR) is not an enquiry into the cause of an individual death or injury. It does not look for someone to blame and it is completely separate from any investigation being undertaken by the police or a coroner. The SAR concentrates instead on whether care professionals and other organisations can learn anything from what happened.

The purpose of a learning review is:

• to establish whether there are lessons to be learned about the way in which local professionals or organisations work together to safeguard and promote the welfare of adults at risk
• to identify clearly what those lessons are, how they will be acted upon and what changes might be necessary
• to improve how agencies work together and better safeguard adults at risk
• to identify any areas of good practice and what worked well

This is a statutory requirement of the Safeguarding Adults Board set out in Section 44 of the Care Act 2014.

Who will carry out the review?

Although there are different ways to conduct a Safeguarding Adult Review (SAR) they all involve gathering as much information from as many sources as possible. In some circumstances, an independent person will be commissioned to produce the report and to make recommendations about what actions and learning is required. In all situations, there will be a panel of professionals from Adult Social Care, Health Services, the Police, Mental Health Services and other organisations that may have had involvement with the adult, who will make up the review panel. This panel will oversee the review and will try to work out exactly what happened, and why. They will consider whether things could or should have been done differently, and also ask questions on how things could be improved and done better in the future

The review panel meet to review information from every organisation or agency who worked with or provided services to the adult at risk or their family. The Lead Reviewer or Author will prepare a report, which will say what lessons have been learnt and make recommendations to Bolton Safeguarding Adults Board.

When the report is finished, the BSAB will write an action plan to make sure improvements are made to the way organisations work together to keep adults at risk safe. Sometimes an individual organisation involved in the review will also identify their own actions which are completed alongside the multi-agency actions identified by the review panel.  

The final report and action plan will then be presented to the full Board so the members have an opportunity to read the report, ask questions of the author and provide authorisation for the report to be published on the BSAB website.

Bolton Safeguarding Adults Board will make sure the actions are completed and improvements are made.  

The review will be undertaken as quickly as possible. However, in some cases it can take around six to nine months from the start of the review to publication of the report.

Who sees the report?

Before the full report is presented to the BSAB, it will be kept confidential to those people who represent their organisations on Bolton Safeguarding Adults Board and the staff within those organisations who worked with the adult at risk and their family or contributed to the review. An Executive Summary will set out the key findings and recommendations of the review. It does not give any personal details or information which would identify the adult at risk, their family or anyone else involved.

Once the BSAB have discussed and authorised the report for publication, it is available to anyone who wants to read it via the BSAB website. This is to ensure that the learning is shared as widely as possible.

If you have any questions regarding an individual Safeguarding Adult Review, you can contact us via email to BSAB@bolton.gov.uk