'Difficult times' for protecting Hartlepool's most vulnerable people

It came as Hartlepool’s Health and Wellbeing Board heard about measures in place to help safeguard adults in care settings across the region.

An update was provided to the meeting on the work of the Teeswide Safeguarding Adults Board in 2019/20, along with plans in place going forward.

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The board is a statutory body, responsible for protecting and promoting an adult’s right to live an independent life free from abuse and neglect.

Cllr Stephen Thomas, council mental health champion, noted how often safeguarding issues are detected by people observing incidents, but this will have been impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic and restrictions in place.

He therefore called for one of the priorities for 2020/21 to consider how the world is ‘different’ and ‘more virtual’ and look at how it will impact safeguarding alerts.

Cllr Thomas said: “These have been quite extraordinary times that we’ve been living in over the last nine months.

“Whilst there is some light possibly at the end of the tunnel, I think we have got some difficult times ahead which are really going to impinge and impact upon safeguarding as an issue going forward.

“Certainly the way in which safeguarding has happened in the past, a lot of the information has come to light because of people observing things, seeing something that isn’t right.

“The opportunities to do that haven’t been there in the same way over the last nine months and certainly moving forward for some considerable period of time probably won’t be there in the same way.”

Jill Harrison, council director of adult and community based services, said it is still ‘business as usual’ in regards to carrying out work to tackle issues, despite the pandemic.

She said: “The pandemic will have impacted differently on different groups.

“We do recognise the world feels like a very different place now and there certainly has been significant impacts in a number of different areas.

“We did see a slight reduction in safeguarding alerts at the start of this period which is now back to normal levels.

“But there were some areas where we did see particular increases around domestic violence which is something highlighted nationally and we do recognise things do feel very different now.”

She added work will be taking place as a task group to look at different approaches to continue to promote tackling adult safeguarding issues, such as looking at how the situation has impacted care homes.

Council officers also noted there has already been an ‘awful lot of work’ in the last year to raise awareness of adult safeguarding issues, including a ‘significant amount’ of time looking at self neglect cases.

This has included an increased focus on working collaboratively and developing ‘safeguarding champions’.

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