Prevention of abuse

Jill ManthorpeSocial Care Workforce Research Unit

King’s College LondonEmail: jill.manthorpe@kcl.ac.uk

Rings of prevention

• ‘Primary intervention’ aims to prevent abuse occurring in the first instance

• ‘Secondary intervention’ aims to identify and respond directly to allegations of potential abuse

• ‘Tertiary intervention’ aims to remedy any negative and harmful consequences of the abuse, and put in place measures to prevent future occurrences

Primary prevention

• Social– Zero tolerance and

targeted approaches (research based)

– Public and peer education

• Legal– Crime & Disorder Act 1998– Trading Standards

• Welfare– Advice and Information– Mental Capacity Act 2005 –

Lasting Powers of Attorney

Emerging areas of prevention

• Human trafficking [Olympics 2012][Children & Vulnerable Adults

exploited as commodities].

• Trafficking Toolkit

• National Referral Mechanism [NRM][Adults and/or children

deemed to be trafficked]

Also e-abuse generally

The Scope for Safeguarding Adults

Prevention Responses

Individuals

Communities

Safer communities initiatives.

Service planning for ‘vulnerable’ groups

Community responses to support individuals and groups

Investigation and protection planning

Empowering person centred approaches

Risk assessment and enablement

Secondary prevention

• Social– Changes in Human Rights

ethos

• Legal– New status eg MCA, new

crimes, victim rights

• Welfare– Policies and procedures,

investigations, inquiries

Example of prevention

• In Hospital X all grade 3 or 4 pressure sores that occur on the ward or are observed on admission are notified to the Police who visit the ward in uniform to investigate

Tertiary prevention

• Social– Compensation,

• Legal– Redress, confinement,

banning, injunctions

• Welfare– learning the lessons,

SUI, SCR, therapy, perpetrator assistance, peer support

“Ill-treatment” & “wilful neglect”

• Mental Capacity Act 2005 section 44 defines “ill-treatment” and “wilful neglect”– Criminalises neglect and abuse

occurring in a relationship of trust• Can include professionals and family

carers• The offender indulges in behaviour

believing the person lacks capacity• Serious departures from required

standards of treatment that they were aware they were under duty to perform

• If reported and prosecuted, penalty for criminal offences may be fine and/or a prison sentence for up to five years

Balancing prevention

• Recent judgments under MCA– ‘physical health and safety can sometimes be bought

at too high a price in happiness and emotional welfare. The emphasis must be on sensible risk appraisal, not striving to avoid all risk, whatever the price, but instead seeking a proper balance and being willing to tolerate manageable or acceptable risks as the price appropriately paid in order to achieve some other good…What good is it to make someone safe if it merely makes them miserable?’ (Re MM 2007)

Some conclusions

• Little evidence on prevention but emerging

• Role in collecting evidence

• Need for common languages

• What are we trying to prevent?

• And what are desired outcomes?

Disclaimer

This presentation presents independent research commissioned by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) under its Programme Grants for Applied Research scheme (RP-PG-0606-1005). The views expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the NHS, the NIHR or the Department of Health.