Making safeguarding personal temperature check

Adult safeguarding has been the recipient of much criticism regarding policy, process and practice, brought to widespread public attention following media exposure and which subsequent initiatives have sought to address. The Care Act 2014 gave a statutory basis to safeguarding reforms and brought together the concepts of personalisation and wellbeing, whereby all safeguarding adults work is to be person-led, outcome-focused, engage with the person and enhance their involvement, choice and control, intending to improving quality of life, wellbeing and safety. This approach and inherent values are operationalised in the initiative Making Safeguarding Personal (MSP). The research reported sought to explore managerial understanding and the current level of implementation of MSP within statutory and private service providers in one area in the north of England. The data collection adopted a constructivist epistemological perspective and undertook semi-structured interviews with middle managers in 17 organisations in one safeguarding board area. These included local authority adult services, police, fire service, housing and private care providers amongst others. The data was subject to framework analysis. A key finding is that policies and procedures may be in place across organisations but the extent to which they are implemented depends on the organisational culture and whether value change as well as policy change has occurred. The report concludes by identifying a typology of organisational implementation which agencies and service providers can use to understand their journey in the implementation of Making Safeguarding Personal in practice.