Transcript Adult Support and Protection

Adult Support and Protection
Financial Harm – Private and Public Sector Roles
Adult Support and Protection (Scotland) Act 2007 Who is an adult at risk of harm?
• No singularly defined service user group:• 16 or over
• Unable to safeguard their own well-being,
property, rights or other interests
• At risk of harm
• Affected by disability, mental disorder,
illness or physical or mental infirmity – are
more vulnerable to being harmed than
adults who are not so affected
Causes of Harm
• Another person’s conduct is (or is likely
to) cause an adult to be harmed
• The adult is (or is at risk of) self harming
Types of Harm
• Harm includes ALL harmful conduct and includes
but is not limited to:
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Physical harm
Psychological harm (causing fear/distress)
Unlawful conduct (theft, fraud etc.)
Financial harm
Self harm
Sexual harm
Information – withholding information about rights or
entitlements
Inquiries and the Duty to Co-operate
• Councils have a duty to inquire where they
know or believe an adult is at risk of harm
• Other agencies named must co-operate
with such inquiries and with each other
• Other agencies named in the Act must
refer any concerns where they know or
believe an adult is at risk of harm
Duty to Co-operate – named agencies
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Mental Welfare Commission
Care Commission
Office of the Public Guardian
Councils (all departments)
Police
Health Boards
Scottish Government guidance to GPs
states the duty extends to them
Know or Believe
• The Act is worded in such a way that a
concern or suspicion is enough to place the
duty on those named to share their
concerns.
• This is a useful way for anyone to think
about harm. Do you know OR believe
someone is being harmed?
Section 10 Requests
• Under Section 10 of ASPA a council officer may
require any person holding health, financial or
other records relating to an individual whom the
officer knows or believes to be an adult at risk,
to give the records, or copies of them to the
officer.
• Health records can only be inspected by a health
professional
Section 10 requests continued
• The records may then be inspected by the
officer and any other person whom the
officer considers appropriate to assist the
council to decide if it needs to take action to
protect an adult at risk from harm.
Sharing without consent – all sectors
• Existing law allows information to be
disclosed without consent where such
disclosure is required by law - either a court
order or statute or where such disclosure
is in the public interest.
• Crime detection and prosecution, as well as
prevention, may provide legitimate grounds
for disclosure.
Offences: Obstruction - Section 49 ASPA
• Obstruction - it is an offence to prevent or
obstruct authorised staff from doing anything
they are entitled to do under the Act.
• It is an offence to refuse, without reasonable
excuse, to comply with a request to provide
information made under section 10 (examination
of records etc.).
• A person found guilty of these offences is liable
on summary conviction to a fine or imprisonment
(adult at risk - not subject to these provisions).
Offences: corporate bodies etc.
• Offences are committed in this regard where the
“relevant person” (or someone acting as such)
either had knowledge of the decision or the
decision was due to neglect.
• That person and the body corporate, partnership
or unincorporated association is also guilty of an
offence.
• A “relevant person” includes but is not limited to;
a director, manager, secretary or other similar
officer of a body corporate such as limited
company or PLC.
Practice Issues: barriers to sharing information
• Fears remain around breaching confidentiality based
upon anxieties of being struck off or disciplined.
• Consent –obtaining consent is clearly best practice
and is required to progress work with the adult post
referral. For agencies named in the Act though, are
staff clear about the balance between consent and
protection concerns and their duties to refer?
• For those in the private and voluntary sector are staff
clear about company policy?
• In both cases are staff still assuming they cannot
report the issue without consent?
Getting the policy right
‘Evidence from key banking personnel
suggests that policy differed between
individual banks as financial institutions, and
that the implementation of operational and
data protection polices at bank branch level
tended to take any personal knowledge of the
older person by counter staff out of the
process.’
Gilbert, A., Stanley, D., Penhale, B. and Gilhooly, M. (2013) Elder Financial abuse in England: a policy analysis
perspective related to social care and banking. Journal of Adult Protection 15(3) 153-163.
The Public Protection information sharing jigsaw
Text here
The importance of the jigsaw
‘…it seemed to me that every agency had a small
piece of information or even quite a large piece of
information but they looked at that information as
though it was disconnected from anything else and
one of the principal findings of the serious case
review was that every agency had a piece of a
jigsaw…’
Margaret Flynn - Safeguarding Adults: Lessons from the murder of Steven Hoskin SCIE Social Care TV
Co-occurring Harm and Scale of Harm
• An Adult at Risk of Harm often experiences
more than one type of harm, your
knowledge of financial harm could be the
tip of the iceberg.
• UK residents subject to scam mail are
estimated to lose £10 billion per year to
such scams.
Think Jessica http://www.thinkjessica.com/
Questions at strategy and practice levels
• Are you and your organisation’s policies
clear about when consent and breach of
confidentiality do and don’t apply?
• Are you and your organisation’s policies
clear about what is relevant and
appropriate to share?
• Do you and your organisation’s policies
assume Data Protection legislation is there
to enable or block the sharing of relevant
and appropriate information?
Do the MASH
http://www.londonscb.gov.uk/mash/
Largely written for public bodies but
useful to consider
REMEMBER THAT THE
DATA PROTECTION ACT
IS NOT A BARRIER TO
SHARING INFORMATION
but provides a
framework to ensure
that personal
information about living
persons is shared
appropriately.
BE OPEN AND HONEST
with the person (and/or their
family where appropriate)
from the outset about why,
what, how and with whom
information will, or could be
shared, and seek their
agreement unless it is
unsafe or inappropriate to
do so.
SEEK ADVICE IF IN ANY
DOUBT
without disclosing the
identity of the person if
possible.
SHARE WITH CONSENT
WHERE
APPROPRIATE
and, where possible,
respect the wishes of those
who do not consent to share
confidential information. You
may still share information
without consent, if in your
judgement, that lack of
consent can be overridden if
it is in the public interest.
You will need to base your
judgement on the facts
of the case.
CONSIDER SAFETY AND
WELL-BEING
base information sharing
decisions on considerations
of the safety and well-being
of the person and others
who might be affected by
their actions.
NECESSARY,
PROPORTIONATE,
RELEVANT, ACCURATE,
TIMELY AND SECURE
Ensure that the information
you share is necessary for
the purpose for which you
are sharing it, is shared only
with the people who need to
have it, is accurate and up
to date, is shared in a timely
fashion and is shared
securely.
KEEP A RECORD OF
YOUR DECISION AND
THE REASONS FOR IT whether it is to share
information or not. If you
decide to share, then record
what you have shared, with
whom and for what purpose.
CONSIDER THE
CALDICOTT PRINCIPLES
CALDICOTT PRINCIPLES
• Justify the purpose
for needing the
information
• Do not use person
identifiable
information unless it
is absolutely
necessary
• Use the minimum
amount necessary of
person identifiable
information
• Access to person identifiable
information should be on a
strictly need to know basis
• Everyone should be aware of
their responsibilities
• Everyone should understand
and comply with the law
• The duty to share
information can be as
important as the duty to
protect patient
confidentiality.
Other Ideas
• Check the Information Sharing protocol
used between statutory agencies – usually
based around Local Authority areas.
• Review the ICOs Data Sharing Code of
Practice
• Consider the protection of a customers
finances (and hence their broader
wellbeing) within the ‘products’ you offer
and how reference to ASPA could enhance
them
The Way Forward
• New coordination group - initially to review
draft terms of reference which include:
• Stakeholder engagement
• The Pledge
• Referral processes and information exchange
• Seeking solutions to issues arising across all
sectors
• Gathering business intelligence
• Sharing best practice and informing training
Who to tell right now
• If you believe someone is at risk of harm –
Local Authority
• If you know there is a PoA, Financial Guardian
or Withdrawer – the OPG or LA
• If you think a crime has been committed –
Police Scotland
• Act Against Harm - website has Local
Authority contact numbers
• Each APC has a webpage with contact details.
Language
Referring to a Local
Authority
• If you feel the person is an
‘Adult at Risk of Harm’ - use
the phrase
• More general concerns Community Care
• Is it Trading Standards
Referring to OPG
• Be clear about the type of
financial intervention that is
in place and why you
believe it is being misused.
An example would be when
it appears that an adult’s
funds are not being used for
their benefit, to meet their
needs, or in line with their
wishes.
Crime – none of this replaces the Police role where a crime is
suspected.