What Safeguarding is

This chapter was added in January 2024.

 

 

Safeguarding is about people and organisations working together to prevent and reduce both the risks and experience of abuse or neglect.

Safeguarding means protecting the health, well-being and human rights of vulnerable adults (people), enabling them to live safely, free from abuse and neglect. Safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility.

Safeguarding is making people aware of their rights.

It also means making sure that the adult's well-being is supported and their views, wishes, feelings and beliefs are respected when agreeing on any action.

In the Isle of Man, safeguarding adults means adopting a rights-based approach to:

  • Promote and respect a person’s right to be safe and secure;
  • Ensure a right to freedom from harm and coercion;
  • Promote equality of treatment;
  • The protection of the law;
  • Privacy;
  • Confidentiality;
  • Freedom from discrimination;

This is achieved by:

  1. Enabling a vulnerable adult to retain independence, well-being and choice, and be able to live a life that is free from abuse and neglect;
  2. Preventingabuseand neglect;
  3. Promoting good practice for responding to concerns on a multiagency basis;
  4. Considering the risks to others and taking appropriate measures to prevent such risk; 
  5. Safeguarding vulnerable adults in a way that supports them in making choices and having control about how they want to live their lives;
  6. Supporting recovery to reduce the impact of abuse and/or neglect; 
  7. Protecting where necessary; 
  8. Raising public awareness - so that our community as a whole, alongside professionals, play their part in identifying, preventing, and responding to abuse and neglect;
  9. Providing information and support in accessible ways to help people understand the different types of abuse, how to stay safe and what to do to raise a concern about the safety or well-being of a vulnerable adult.

Safeguarding also means identifying and taking proportionate measures to address the source of the abuse or neglect – in a timely way.

Safeguarding must not be used as a threat to organisations or individuals. Equally safeguarding should not be seen as punitive or with negative connotations. The primary principle of adult safeguarding is empowerment, to restore power and control to individuals, with them, for them and with due consideration for the protection of others.

The six principles of adult safeguarding apply in all safeguarding scenarios - from individual case work, and to how agencies work together effectively with one another.

Safeguarding is NOT a substitute for:

  • Providers’ responsibilities to provide safe and good quality care and support;
  • Commissioners regularly assuring themselves of the safety and effectiveness of commissioned services;
  • Effective clinical and governance processes;
  • Regulators ensuring that regulated providers comply with the expected standards of care and taking enforcement action where necessary;
  • Core duties of the Police and other agencies to prevent and detect crime and protect life and property.

However, safeguarding can run alongside and make reference to the core functions and findings of other agencies within the partnership.

Safeguarding vulnerable adults work also includes the involvement of a broad range of organisations, service areas and workers, all of whom will need to be aware of their roles and responsibilities, on both an internal agency and multiagency basis.