Safeguarding Patients at YAS
YAS has a responsibility to report any incident where there are concerns that a child or an adult at risk may be suffering significant harm or abuse, or is at risk of suffering harm or abuse. YAS would share their safeguarding concerns with the relevant agency, who have a duty to investigate these concerns and take any appropriate action.
In order to meet our safeguarding responsibilities, YAS has a Safeguarding Team comprising of:
- Head of Safeguarding
- Named Professionals for Safeguarding
- Safeguarding Practitioner
- Paediatric Liaison Nurse
- Senior Quality and Safety Administrator.
A mandatory training programme is available to all staff aligned with the Intercollegiate Documents, Safeguarding children and young people: roles and competencies for health care staff and Safeguarding Adults: Roles and competencies for health care workers. Training products are regularly reviewed to ensure that staff have the knowledge and skills required to identify abuse and make appropriate referrals to Social Care.
A safeguarding audit strategy is in place to monitor the number, type and quality of safeguarding referrals. The outcome of audit is used to improve training and service provision.
Staff can access the Safeguarding module within the Trust’s intranet to access safeguarding policy, guidance and other relevant documents including:
- Safeguarding Policy (Children, Young People and Adults at Risk)
- Allegations Against Staff Guidance Management
- Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE) – Staff Guidance
- Domestic Abuse Management Guidance
- PREVENT Strategy Guidance
- Supervision Framework for Safeguarding Team
- Guidance for the Management of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)
- Recruitment and Selection Policy
- Freedom to Speak up Policy
- Patient Consent to Examination or Treatment
Multi-agency working arrangements are in place with all adult and children safeguarding boards across Yorkshire in response to notifications of serious case reviews, safeguarding adult reviews, learning lesson reviews and domestic homicide reviews where there has been YAS involvement. All recommendations from reviews and action plans are monitored by the Safeguarding Team. YAS also submits reports to the Child Death Overview Panels following any involvement with the unexpected death of a child. YAS works together with Local Authority Safeguarding Boards to ensure that any lessons are learned and information is disseminated to staff.
A process in place to provide our Lead Commissioner and statutory and regulatory bodies with relevant reports, data and action plans to evidence commitment to improving services and how we safeguard our patients.
