Safeguarding Adult Reviews

What are Safeguarding Adult Reviews?

A Safeguarding Adult Review (SAR) is a multi-agency learning process that considers:

• Why and how serious abuse or neglect happened to an adult and what could have  been done to prevent it happening
• Could partners work together differently to protect the adult and prevent the abuse that leads to the death or serious harm of an adult with care and support needs?

The review aims to identify and share lessons learnt to prevent similar abuse or neglect happening again.  It is not the job of the review to redo the investigation or apportion blame to any organisation or partners.  The aims of a Safeguarding Adults Review include:

• Establish if there are lessons that can be learned about how professionals and organisations work together to protect adults
• Giving adults and/or their advocates a voice about how professionals and services can better protect vulnerable adults in the future
• Review how effective Coventry’s safeguarding procedures are
• Act on learning to improve local multi-agency practice
• Highlight good practice that can be shared with others

Safeguarding Adult Reviews are about learning together and improving how adults are protected from abuse of all kinds.

How are Safeguarding Adult Reviews requested and conducted?

Under section 44 of the Care Act, Safeguarding Adult Reviews are a statutory requirement.  Coventry Safeguarding Adults Board is the only body that can carry out a SAR and has produced a toolkit for professionals outlining the criteria and processes for requesting a review.  This is available on this website, as is the referral form to request a SAR.  The SAR subgroup will consider any requests and then seek the Boards approval to carry out any review they see necessary that meets the criteria as set out in the SAR toolkit. The Care Act 2014 states that:-

14.133. Safeguarding Adults Boards (SABs) must arrange a SAR when an adult in its area dies as a result of abuse or neglect, whether known or suspected, and there is concern that partner agencies could have worked more effectively to protect the adult.

14.134. SABs must also arrange a SAR if an adult in its area has not died, but the SAB knows or suspects that the adult has experienced serious abuse or neglect. In the context of SARs, something can be considered serious abuse or neglect where, for example, the individual would have been likely to have died but for an intervention, or has suffered permanent harm or has reduced capacity or quality of life (whether because of physical or psychological effects) as a result of the abuse or neglect. SABs are free to arrange for a SAR in any other situations involving an adult in its area with needs for care and support.

14.135. The SAB should be primarily concerned with weighing up what type of ‘review’ process will promote effective learning and improvement action to prevent future deaths or serious harm occurring again. This may be where a case can provide useful insights into the way organisations are working together to prevent and reduce abuse and neglect of adults. SARs may also be used to explore examples of good practice where this is likely to identify lessons that can be applied to future cases.

• Read our executive summaries
• Safeguarding Toolkit for professionals to use as a guide when deciding if an individual case meets the criteria for a Safeguarding Adult Review.
• Understanding the legal framework for conducting a Safeguarding Adult Review (Video)

The SAR request form is to be completed to request a SAR only.

 West Midlands regional information 

• West Midlands Safeguarding Adults SAR guidance.
• WM Safeguarding Adults Review Information leaflet
• SAR sheet for family, friends and carers
• West Midlands SAR information sheet for individuals

Communication Strategy

Please see our Communication Strategy informing you how we share the learning of our SARs.

Learning Event following two SARs

Below is a learning event that was held in relation to two Safeguarding Adult Reviews. Please take the time to view the footage to gain an understanding of the work the Partnership and partner agencies completed in relation to the two cases:

Learning event 

Please feel welcome to view the below learning event which will provide you with some assistance with understanding a Safeguarding Adult Review:

SAR learning event