MSP is a person-centred approach. It shifts the focus from process-driven interventions to outcomes that matter to the individual. It involves:
Ensuring that the adult's views, wishes and desired outcomes shape the support they receive.
Encouraging the adult to make informed decisions and actively participate in their safeguarding plans
Working collaboratively with others, including the adult and their families, to provide a coordinated response
Using advocacy support to empower the adult.
Doing what is necessary and proportionate to address the risks and reduce harm.
MSP is embedded in The Care Act 2014. If you identify or receive a safeguarding concern, have you considered these steps?
Have you discussed your concerns with the adult?
Do they understand what has happened to them?
Have you discussed possible outcomes with them?
Have you asked them what they want to happened?
Have you sought consent to report the concern?
Is there a need to override consent?
What do you need to do to address immediate risks?
MSP: Capacity and Consent
The Care Act (2014) and The Mental Capacity Act (2005) are intrinsically linked:
If an adult has capacity to give consent for the safeguarding concern to be raised, then you must discuss this with them and try to gain their consent to do so;
If the adult has capacity and refuses to give consent, you must respect this decision, unless you have reason to override this.
Consent can only be overridden if:
There is a public interest to act. For example, other adults or children may be at risk; or
There is a duty of care to intervene. For example, if a crime has been - or is about to be - committed.
Points to Note:
Your starting point should always be: the adult has the capacity to consent to (or not to) the safeguarding concern being raised.
If there is any reason to doubt that the adult lacks capacity to consent (or to refuse consent), a capacity assessment must be carried out
Making Safeguarding Personal does not mean 'walking away' if a person declines safeguarding support and / or a S42 enquiry. Empowerment must be balanced for example with Duty of Care and the principles of the Human Rights Act (1998) and of the Mental Capacity Act (2005). This is illustrated in S11 of the care act, where it is explicit that although the local authority duty to carry out a needs assessment (S9) may be removed if the adult does not consent, this does not apply where the adult is experiencing or at risk of abuse or neglect (S11(2)(b)). In the event that there is no duty under S42 to make enquiries, the practitioner must still consider how any identified risk will be mitigated and how that will be communicated to the adult concerned and the person accused of causing harm.
"Nothing about me, without me"
Camphill Village is a charity that supports people with learning disabilities to help them speak up and live a life of opportunity. They have produced a video on Making Safeguarding Personal:
"It is about having conversations with adults about how responses to safeguarding situations can be made in a way that enhances their involvement, choice and control as well as improving their quality of life, wellbeing and safety. It is about seeing adults as experts in their own lives, and working alongside them to identify the outcomes they want." LGA - Making Safeguarding Personal (2014)
The LGA suite of Making Safeguarding Personal resources is designed to describe what 'good' might look like in MSP for a range of organisations and promote ownership of this agenda within and across all organisations.
Please note that this is for further information about the Safeguarding Adults Board only. If you are concerned that someone is at risk of, or experiencing, abuse or neglect please contact Adult Social Care
