Safeguarding Policies Overview

Safeguarding Policies

• Safeguarding policies are required in all organisations, not just those dealing with children, young people or the elderly
• Safeguarding policies should provide guidelines on what an organisation needs to do in order to protect individuals' health, wellbeing and human rights.

Scope

• Safeguarding policies should ensure individuals are protected from harm. This includes those working within the organisation, service users and visitors.

Agencies Involved in Safeguarding

• Local authority social care services for adults, young people and children have a statutory duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of people at risk.
• GPs can be the first point of contact within the healthcare system.
• The Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) is working towards embedding safeguarding of adults and children into everyday routine practice. This includes recognising patterns of neglect, referring patients to appropriate secondary healthcare (for example in hospital) or social care, supporting families and responding to inter-agency requests.
• Hospitals (secondary healthcare) play a similar role to GPs.
• Education settings such as schools and colleges can identify early warning signs of neglect and other safeguarding issues affecting their students.
• Ofsted inspects and regulates services that care for children and young people, as well as schools, colleges and other services that provide education and skills training for learners of all ages.
• The Care Quality Commission (CQC) monitors, inspects and regulates health and social care services provided by hospitals, care homes, doctors and dentists in England.
• The Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) provides information about criminal records and makes decisions about people being barred from certain activities. This helps employers to make safer decisions about recruitment and prevents unsuitable people from working with children and vulnerable adults.

Employment Contracts

• Every employee has an employment contract with their employer.
• The contract does not have to be written down — in fact, as soon as someone accepts a job offer, they have a contract with their employer.
• This means that if either side backs out (for example, the employee withdraws the job offer or they decide to take a different job), they could risk legal action for a breach of contract.
• The employment contract is an agreement that sets out:
  • employment conditions
  • rights
  • responsibilities
  • duties
• Both employer and employee must stick to the terms of the contract.

Multi-agency safeguarding hub (MASH)

• The multi-agency safeguarding hub (MASH) model has been developed as a way of allowing the many different agencies and professionals involved in child safeguarding to gather and process information quickly and efficiently.
• This partnership means that they are better placed to make correct, appropriate and proportionate decisions relating to child safety.
• Important questions to consider about MASH:
  • Is there a MASH in your local area?
  • Can you see ways in which this could be applied in a healthcare setting?

This quiz covers the essential elements of safeguarding policies required in organizations across various sectors. It highlights the importance of protecting individuals' health, wellbeing, and human rights as well as the agencies involved in safeguarding efforts.