Gateshead Safeguarding Adults Annual Report 2023/24
Introduction
Why an annual report?
This is an important time of the year for Gateshead Safeguarding Adults Board as we have both a legal duty to produce an annual report and a strategic plan. They work well together as the annual report outlines how we have met the challenges we set ourselves the previous year and the strategic plan helps to set out the journey that the Board is on in future years. It is rare that we can say things are complete or finished and rightly so, we will always strive to build on what we have achieved to ensure we aim for better things year on year. The annual report holds the detail of how the Safeguarding Adults Board is governed, structured and works, it includes our strategic priorities and outlines our achievements towards those priorities.
My first year
This has been my first year as the independent chair for Gateshead's Safeguarding Adults Board and the production of the annual report offers an opportunity to pause, to reflect and to take stock of our achievements. As a Safeguarding Adults Board we have had ongoing change with the structures across our statutory and non-statutory Safeguarding Adults Board partners, however this has not impacted in any way on the immense commitment, drive and collaboration demonstrated across the Safeguarding Adults Board partnership. I feel we have continued to mature and develop together and have started to really 'own' our collective responsibility for the effectiveness of our partnership work. This is demonstrated in how we challenge, support and hold each other to account and within the strong governance and learning framework we have developed as a board. We are working hard together to ensure we embed the learning from Safeguarding Adults Reviews, and other reviews where vulnerable adults feature. The complexity of some people's lives and situations means an ever more coordinated multi agency response is required to help people remain safe and well. The journey to learn from this type of situation has become increasingly prominent and features heavily within our plans for 2024/25.
Committed to care
The Care Act 2014 challenged Safeguarding Adults Boards and its members to work in person-centred ways that involve listening to the person at risk, ensuring they are involved within decisions about their own safety and wellbeing, and seeking the changes they want wherever possible. Gateshead Safeguarding Adults Board is committed to really listening to people and we have involvement and person centeredness as an ambition that runs through each of our 5 strategic priorities. Over the next year this approach will set the direction for how the Board needs to work, and the expectations for how individual services must work to provide individuals with help and protection across Gateshead.
Listening
As a Safeguarding Adults Board, we have initiated work this year to seek advice, to listen and to learn from people and their families who have been involved in safeguarding directly. This and ongoing work with our community and voluntary sector will help to equip and set the direction for how the Safeguarding Adults Board can make safeguarding truly personal. Each year we will take further steps towards being truly citizen-led in our work.
Partners
As the Gateshead Safeguarding Adults Board Chair, I would like to take the opportunity to thank everyone for their work to help and protect adults in Gateshead. I offer thanks to the Safeguarding Adults Board partners for their commitment and that of their colleagues as this enables the Board to continue to take important strides forward. The Safeguarding Adults Board and its subgroups are made up of committed individuals who go the extra mile each and every week to support the Board's various subgroups and workstreams - these are often the people who 'make it happen'.
Thank you
It is with regret however, that I rarely get the opportunity to thank in person frontline workers across all services and agencies in Gateshead for all they do to support individuals to be safe and to feel safe. It is important we recognise that it is only with the support of frontline teams, services and practitioners that we achieve our ambitions of Gateshead being a safe place for everyone.
Better practice
As a Board we regularly hear about new initiatives and services that will make a difference, we hear about examples of excellent practice through individuals and teams who explore every opportunity in difficult circumstances, to help and minimise the risk to people they support. Introduction from our Independent Chair
Working together
In practice we can only move forward together by listening, by being inclusive and by valuing and respecting each other's unique contribution to safeguarding. The level of work and commitment from partners, from frontline workers to volunteers, unpaid family carers, and those within our communities has been amazing. Together we are making a difference.
Nicola Bailey
Independent Chair, Gateshead Safeguarding Adults Board
Share this page
