Welcome from the Independent Chair

Picture of Anu Singh

I am delighted to welcome you to the Lambeth Safeguarding Adults Board website. I joined the Board as its Independent Chair in March 2021, and was delighted to join such a mature and value driven leadership community. This is a Board that is truly ambitious for our communities and our staff - especially around tackling the unacceptable inequalities that some of our communities face in being supported, protected and helped to live independent lives free from harm.  

My brief is to ensure that adults are protected in the borough by those that work with them; to provide assurance and hold all organisations working in Lambeth to account. This is in accordance with the statutory (legal) requirements set out by the Care Act 2014. Since April 2015, the Board has legal status and duties to take action which ensures citizens in Lambeth are safe.  

 My professional expertise is around helping and leading systems to work in partnership with our people and communities to deliver real outcomes improvements in protection, strengths, and confidence. My passion is around making safeguarding personal and community empowerment, and have led on building strengths based relationships with our most vulnerable communities for the National NHS, local strategic partners, County, City & Metropolitan Councils.

With best wishes

Anu Singh 

WHAT DO WE DO?

The Safeguarding Adults Board is a strategic lead body in Lambeth that looks to ensure that all organisations and people who work with adults at risk in Lambeth know about adult safeguarding and know how to respond should they come across a concern. The Board does this by coordinating local partnership arrangements in order to maintain consistent, cohesive partnership working to safeguard adults at risk from harm.

The Board is not responsible for delivery of services, though those who plan and make decisions about services locally have representation at the Board and give the Board regular assurance on how services are delivered.

The core objective of the Board, set out in section 43(2) of the Care Act 2014, is to help and protect adults in its area in cases where:

  • An adult has care and support needs;
  • An adult is experiencing, or is at risk of, abuse or neglect; and
  • As a result of those care and support needs they are unable to protect themselves from either the risk of or the experience of abuse or neglect

We do this by ensuring all organisations talk to each other and we also ensure the effectiveness of actions taken across all organisations.

The Care Act 2014 places statutory functions on the Board which include:

  • It must publish a strategic plan
  • It must write an annual report
  • It must conduct a safeguarding adult review if an adult with care and support needs dies and abuse or neglect is suspected.

The strategic plan, annual reports and safeguarding adults reviews can be found below.

Our constitution

A new constitution was agreed at the Safeguarding Adults Board’s Development Day on 15th March 2016. This establishes how the Board is expected to function in order to fulfil its statutory duties. This clearly sets out the following:

  • Objectives, Roles and Functions of the Board
  • Membership of the Board
  • Assurance

Strategic Plans

Each year the Board agrees its strategic plan. This became a statutory duty on the Board when the Care Act 2014 came into force. The strategic plans for each year can be found below:

Board Meeting Dates

The Board Meets quarterly and the dates are set a year in advance. Below are the list of meetings for 2023/24.

2023
10th January
2023
18th April
2023
10th October
2024
16th January

Annual Reports - Easy Read

Safeguarding Adults Reviews

SAR

Under the Care Act 2014, the Board is responsible for the coordination of Safeguarding Adults Reviews (SARs). These reviews are commissioned where there has been an incident of serious harm or death involving a vulnerable adult. A multi-agency process, SARs aim to identify where agencies or individuals might have been able to act differently and this learning is implemented to try and prevent serious harm or death from happening again.

SARs in Lambeth will be published here:

Mr A

Mr A was a Serious Case Review carried out before the introduction of the Care Act; we have shared this 7-minute briefing as we feel the learning is still relevant.

SAR D
SAR E 
SAR Martin 

 

SAR Yi 

 

SAR G

Board Membership

THE SAFEGUARDING ADULTS BOARD MEMBERSHIP IS AS FOLLOWS: