The Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI) has recently published a study “Safeguarding adults” on the effectiveness of local authorities’ arrangements to safeguard adults, including elderly people, from abuse and on the support they offer to those who experience abuse. CSCI’s report found: 

• The effectiveness of arrangements to help prevent abuse and provide support for people who have been abused varies within and between local authorities’ areas.  It also varies within individual care services. There are councils showing active leadership and building strong strategic partnerships. However, there is a gap between the best and worst performers.
• More needs to be done to ensure people who direct their own support are safeguarded.  
• The evidence suggests that if a council is performing well safeguarding its adults a greater number of care services in its area are also performing well. There is an also a positive relationship between a care service’s overall CSCI quality rating and its ability to safeguard adults.

CSCI is the government body responsible for regulating and inspecting all social care providers - whether public, commercial or not for profit. They are also responsible for assessing the performance of local councils’ social services departments. Their press release can be viewed at http://www.csci.org.uk/about_us/press_releases/people_experience.aspx. The full report can be downloaded free from http://www.csci.org.uk/PDF/safeguard%5b1%5d.pdf