Significant progress has been made by services in the city of Edinburgh in ensuring adults at risk of harm are safe, protected and supported.
A review was carried out by the Care Inspectorate, Healthcare Improvement Scotland and His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland, following a previous joint inspection of adult support and protection conducted in 2022.
Inspectors found that all adult support and protection investigations were completed timeously. Updated templates supported improvements in the quality and consistency of council officer practice.
Case conferences had significantly improved in quality, always took place when required and were well attended by multi-agency partners. The partnership had invested in additional posts to positively support case conference activity.
The partnership made significant progress to increase social work capacity to carry out adult support and protection work promptly, effectively and efficiently. Social work vacancies had substantially decreased.
The health and social care partnership took positive steps to review and then strengthen social work leadership. This led to significant progress in strategic leaders ensuring effective adult support and protection practice.
The partnership had made some progress in managing risk. The quality of risk assessments had improved and practice was supported by an effective risk assessment framework. However, there was more work to be done, particularly in making improvements to the quality of chronologies.
The partnership had a dedicated adult support and protection committee quality assurance subgroup, and it had a sound multi-agency self-evaluation plan in place. Multi-agency audits had recently re-started.
However, minimal progress had been made in ensuring direct representation in the adult protection committee and associated structure. The partnership had considerable work to do to make sure that their discussions and decisions were fully informed by the interests and concerns of adults at risk of harm. A plan to address this was in the early stages of implementation.
Jackie Irvine, Chief Executive of the Care Inspectorate, said: “Since 2022 the partnership has made steady progress improving key processes. They have also considerably strengthened the senior social work leadership team and the adult protection committee, adding key posts to the structure. These made a significant impact to adult support and protection leadership and governance within a relatively short timeframe.
“The Care Inspectorate will continue to engage with the partnership.”
The full report can be read here.