Gateshead Safeguarding Adults Annual Report 2023/24

Board members are responsible for ensuring that governance and scrutiny arrangements for Safeguarding Adults are incorporated within the structure of their own organisations, and that there are mechanisms for disseminating and sharing information from the Safeguarding Adults Board. The governance and scrutiny arrangements for the three statutory partners include:

Gateshead Council

• The Health and Wellbeing Board receive an annual update from the Safeguarding Adults Board Independent Chair upon publication of the annual report as do the Care, Health and Wellbeing Overview and Scrutiny Committee.
• The Safeguarding Adults Board Independent Chair meets on a quarterly basis with the Portfolio holder for Adult Social Care to provide updates on the work of the board.
• The Gateshead Council Internal Audit service provide assurance that the Board and Gateshead Council are meeting their statutory duties.
• A weekly workbook and report is circulated to practice leads and team managers highlighting key areas of safeguarding, detailing latest comparator information and trends over the last 12 months, and the previous 3 years.
• A monthly Senior Management Team meeting take place which is dedicated to performance management. The performance dashboard is used to highlight areas of good performance and areas for improvement are shared, actions are discussed and set wherever necessary through the senior management team meeting. 
• A dedicated Group Management Team (GMT) focusing on finance and performance is held monthly with relevant senior leaders, where the activity from the previous steps are presented, actions and progress discussed, and further analysis and actions are agreed and taken forward. 
• Safeguarding information is presented to the Gateshead SAB on a quarterly basis a dashboard has been developed which covers safeguarding data relevant to the board this is to provide assurance to the board of good practice and actions taken on areas of improvement.

Northeast and North Cumbria Integrated Care Board (NENC ICB) 

• The ICB Chief Nurse holds the lead for the safeguarding portfolio.
• ICB internal assurance is provided via safeguarding reports to the Area Quality Sub Committee who report to the Quality Safety and Risk Committee (Quarterly).
• Reports provide local updates on the work of the safeguarding partnerships and ensure that key safeguarding risks, issues and developments are reported within the ICB.
• Reports also outline activity relating to Safeguarding Adult Reviews (SARs) Domestic Homicide Reviews (DHRs) and other non-statutory reviews such as Appreciative Enquiries.
• The ICB also has a Safeguarding Senior Leadership Group which coordinates and leads the development of Safeguarding arrangements across the ICB, reporting and escalating issues to the ICB where appropriate and has a key role in leading on assurance and development.
• Governance and scrutiny arrangements will continue to evolve under the new Integrated Care Board arrangements.

Northumbria Police

• All learning from national and local serious case reviews are scrutinised through the Organisational Learning Board and the organisational learning log.
• The organisational learning log is focused on the importance of identifying learning opportunities and drivers, embedding the value of lessons learned, and helping the organisation to become focused on the importance of continuous learning.
• Each Area Command and Department has a responsibility to consider drivers for lessons learned and to encourage organisational learning within their areas of business.
• The organisational learning log is submitted to the Organisational Learning Board for discussion and agreement of new actions, and to ensure organisational wide learning has been considered.
• Agreed recommendations and actions from the relevant ODG or board will be managed by the assigned learning owner.
• Areas of learning and best practice that require Force wide communication or change are escalated through Strategic Management Board.