Care home safeguarding

[3ormorecharacters]

I have an elderly relative who has been happily in a home for several years. Over the last month or so she has become ill and hospitalised, and has decided she wants to die in hospital. She's been there for a long time now though and they need the bed back, so they have been encouraging her to go back to the home.

Some other relatives went to visit at the weekend and the relative claimed that she has been sexually abused at the home. Apparently she only mentioned quite casually it in passing, by way of explaining why she didn't want to go back, but she didn't say anything else delerious or unusual. At the time is was put it down to confusion and I'm sure it probably is just that as she has always seemed very happy at this home previously. She is now going to a different home for palliative care anyway, but I wonder if we should raise some kind of safeguarding concern about the old home on the off chance that there is something to it. I know schools have a designated safeguarding lead for these kinds of things, does anyone know if care homes have the same thing and how we should go about it?

Yes - report. Phone the care home as ask to speak to their safe guarding lead. They will have a protocol in place so will know to take it seriously. Even if you think the relative was confused its best to have it investigated for the safety of other residents.

No. Sexual abuse isn't something for a safeguarding lead at a school or care home to deal with. Report it to your local MASH ASAP. You can find it on your local council website.

Definitely report the local authority adult safeguarding team. Let them make the enquiries. Just google the number. In my area you can put in the safeguarding alert either using an online form or by ringing the team.

Put a camera in her room and arrange for everyone to visit - not necessarily for long but just so the staff knows there are people popping in and out. Don’t go at the same time or on the same day every week. My GM was abused in her nursing home and when DD went into one I made sure the staff never knew when I was coming. Fortunately I could go everyday but I varied the time.

Google your local authority MASH team for adults (Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub). There will be an online form to fill in and you can report directly to them.

They are used to dealing with these situations and will know how to handle it sensitively.

I wouldn't bother going through the care home as this is just a middle step (they will also report to MASH) and honestly, if it is happening in the home they might not want it reporting. The care home management have a huge vested interest in ensuring the home looks to be performing well.

Just go to MASH yourself.

Not every local authority has a MASH.

I am a social worker in a safeguarding team.

The first thing we will do when you ring it in is ask you to ring the police.

The police will handle it really sensitively, they have specialist teams that deal with this sort of thing.

Sadly sexual abuse of older adults in care homes is definitely something that happens more than people realise.

That's appalling, I can't believe that some places don't have a MASH. So do social workers not do ABEs in your LA?

Not if there is any whiff of anything potentially criminal no!?

Its not that unusual not to have a MASH for adult safeguarding. Two out of the three local authorities I've worked for don't have one, one that did have one doesn't any more.

Can I ask what local authority this is as I can direct you to who you should contact?