Safeguarding an adult at risk: the signs and who to tell

The guidance is explicit that the list illustrates rather than limits. Three conditions decide whether a concern becomes a formal safeguarding matter: the adult has needs for care and support, they are experiencing or at risk of abuse or neglect, and because of those needs they cannot protect themselves. Those needs do not have to be met by the council. If you are still working out what help your relative needs day to day, the signs a parent needs help at home is a gentler place to start, and the legal side of caring for a parent gathers the rest of the law.

When you ring, describe what you saw and when you saw it, and keep your conclusions separate from the facts. "There was no food in the fridge on the 3rd or the 10th, and she said she had not eaten since the morning" gives the council something to work with. "I think he is being starved" does not, and it puts a name to something you may be wrong about. Keep a short written note with dates, so you can still remember the detail in three weeks.

To find the right council, use the find your local council lookup on GOV.UK, then search that council's site for adult social care or safeguarding. You want the council covering the area your relative is in now, which is not always the one they are registered with. Worcestershire County Council, as one example, asks the public to report online or to book an appointment with its adult front door, and checks every concern against safeguarding as the Care Act 2014 defines it.

If the concern is about a registered service, the Care Quality Commission's page for members of the public explains what to send. Where an attorney or deputy is involved, GOV.UK sets out how to report a concern about an attorney, deputy or guardian, and paying for care as an attorney and lasting power of attorney cover what that role obliges somebody to do.

1. 1

   The concern is checked against the three conditions

   The duty

   If your relative has needs for care and support, is at risk of abuse or neglect, and cannot protect themselves because of those needs, the duty applies. If not, the council may still look into it, and can offer an assessment or advice instead.
2. 2

   The council decides what enquiry is needed, and who makes it

   Enquiries

   Section 42(2) says the authority must make, or cause to be made, whatever enquiries it thinks necessary. That can be one conversation or a formal multi-agency plan. It can ask another organisation to do the work and stays legally responsible for the enquiry.
3. 3

   Your relative is asked what they want to happen

   Their voice

   The adult should be involved from the start unless that would increase the risk. If they have substantial difficulty taking part and nobody suitable can support them, the council must arrange an independent advocate.
4. 4

   Facts are established and a decision is made

   The findings

   The objectives are to establish facts, find out the adult's views and wishes, assess what they need by way of protection, support and redress, and decide what should follow for whoever is responsible.
5. 5

   If action is needed there is a written plan, and it is reviewed

   The plan

   Where follow-up action is required the enquiry must end in an agreed plan, recorded on the care plan and sometimes called a protection plan. It sets out the steps to keep your relative safe, any support or advocacy, and how the risk is reviewed.

The guidance sets no fixed timetable, so ask at the first call who your point of contact is and whether a section 42 enquiry has been opened, because the answer tells you which duty the council thinks it is working under. What you are told afterwards depends on your relative rather than on you. One of the six principles is that personal information is treated in confidence, with only what is helpful and necessary shared, so if your relative can make the decision, they choose how much is passed on. If they cannot, decisions are made in their best interests under the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and the family is normally part of that. If more support is needed at home, local authority funding explains the assessment that follows.

Capacity is decision by decision and can come and go, so somebody may be able to decide about their shopping and not about their bank account. Mental capacity and how it is assessed sets out how that judgement is made. Where a person has capacity and refuses, the guidance says the refusal should normally be respected, with two exceptions: where a criminal offence may have taken place, and where somebody else may be at significant risk. Age UK adds a third case, where a person appears to have capacity but cannot decide freely because they are being coerced. Say so when you report, because it changes how the council reads the refusal.

None of this gives a family the power to decide instead. Can an elderly person be forced into care in the UK? explains where that line sits, and when someone with dementia refuses care covers the same question when dementia is involved. If you have been thinking about a camera in the house, read whether it is legal to film carers in your home first.

Our guide to self-employed carers and the CQC covers that last point. It is worth knowing what our checks cover. Every carer has had an identity check, a right to work check and an enhanced DBS on the Update Service, has been interviewed online, and is insured while they work. We do not check qualifications, training or references. What a carer says about their experience is their own account on their profile, for the family to check. How we vet every carer sets out each step.

If the family decides to change the arrangement, you can search for carers near you and compare their rates and talk to the ones you like before anything is agreed. Ask what they would do on a day when something at the house did not look right.

Workers have their own route and it is narrower than people expect. GOV.UK's guidance on whistleblowing protects workers, described there as employees, trainees, agency workers and members of a limited liability partnership, and that list does not include self-employed people. A self-employed carer worried about a client reports the way anybody else does, to the council and the police. Our become a carer section is written for that side of the work.