Cookie Settings.
This site uses cookies to make the site simpler. To find out more visit cookies and privacy.
Adult safeguarding

Adult Safeguarding

Safeguarding means protecting people's health, wellbeing and human rights, and enabling them to live free from harm, abuse and neglect. It's fundamental to high-quality health and social care (CQC, 2015).

Our drivers for best practise stem from the Care Act 2014, the national ‘Make Safeguarding Personal’ agenda and through our membership of the local tri-borough Safeguarding Adults Board which now has statutory safeguarding duties.  This includes undertaking Safeguarding Adults Reviews (SAR), where learning may be evident & ensuring partner agencies fulfil their duties under safeguarding.


Currently our prevention service is working within the local community raising awareness of abuse with customer groups.  This is via training and our quarterly Safeguarding Forum which is an open forum attended by agencies, community representatives, customers and carers/relatives and providers.  We have also been working with CLASP to develop Adult Safeguarding information in an easy read version.


The Adult Safeguarding statistics for 2014 – 15 for residents and people within the Wokingham Borough (i.e. how many Adult Safeguarding referrals were made and who experienced abuse) are:

  • 868 safeguarding alerts received
  • 499 of these required a safeguarding enquiry (57%)
  • 61% of referrals were for a female, which reflects both national and local trends.
  • 71% of referrals were for people aged 65 years or over, showing a year on year increase for this age group.  This is not surprising given our aging demographic population.
  • 48% of referrals were for individuals with a primary support reason of physical support
  • For those with a primary support need of Mental Health, we have a lower referral rate than the national average – 12% nationally and only 4% locally.
  • We have a higher referral rate than the national average for people with a Learning Disability because Ravenswood Village is within our boundaries.
  • The highest alleged abuse was for Neglect or Acts of Omission – 37%. This reflects the large number of care services within our Borough.
  • There were lower reports of Financial Abuse – 11%, which is lower than the national average of 17%.
  • We had a 50% increase in self-referral by individuals, showing that there is a growing awareness within our communities.
  • As we do not have any large hospitals within the Borough, referral rates for hospital locations are below national trends (averages) – 6% nationally and 1% locally.
  • 65% of people had their risks reduced by safeguarding interventions (things put in place to try and stop it). 11% of people had the risk fully removed.

Of all the alerts that progressed to an enquiry:

  • 45% were fully substantiated
  • 14% were partially substantiated
  • 19% were inconclusive
  • 20% were not substantiated



The Local Authority is aware that improvements need to be made with regards to measuring the outcomes for people who have been involved in the Adult Safeguarding process and this is an area they will be focusing upon.