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The latest information on adult safeguarding and deferred payment agreements during 2018/19 has been released today by NHS Digital in two reports.

The report on safeguarding adults provides details of how many safeguarding concerns were raised during the year, how many safeguarding enquiries² were started and how many were completed within that year under Section 42 of the Care Act 2014^3.

Safeguarding Adults England, 2018-19¹ collects information from Councils with Adult Social Services Responsibilities (CASSRs) and breaks the enquiries down by the type, location and source of risk, as well as outcome.

It also provides a demographic analysis of those individuals who were the subject of a Section 42 enquiry that started within the year.

The Safeguarding Adults Collection only includes cases of suspected abuse where a local authority safeguarding service has been notified and has entered details onto their system⁴. It does not include cases where partner agencies have dealt with the allegation and not shared the information with the local authority. It is likely that there are cases of abuse that have not been reported to local authorities.  

Further analysis of the safeguarding adults data is available at local, regional and national levels, on request.

Also published today is the Deferred Payment Agreements (DPA) Report, England 2018-19, which provides information on the number and associated value of adult social care deferred payment agreements in England for 2018-19⁵.

A deferred payment agreement is an arrangement with the local authority that enables people to use the value of their homes to help pay for care home costs. If eligible, the local authority will help to pay a client’s care home bills on their behalf. The client can delay repaying the local authority until they choose to sell their home, or until after their death.

This is the fourth year of the DPA collection however this is the second year that all data items are mandatory⁶.

Read the full reports:  

Safeguarding Adults England, 2018-19

Deferred Payment Agreements Report, England 2018-19

Notes to Editors

1. This is the fourth year of the Safeguarding Adults Collection since safeguarding became a statutory duty under the Care Act 2014. Due to changes in terminology and definitions, care must be taken when comparing data in this report to those published in the Safeguarding Adults Report in 2013-14 and 2014-15.
2. A safeguarding concern is where a council is notified about a risk of abuse, which instigates an investigation under the local safeguarding procedures. The initial investigation may then develop into a formal investigation, known as an enquiry. Enquiries categorised as opened during the reporting year may not necessarily have concluded during the reporting year.
3. Details of Section 42 of the Care Act 2014 can be found here: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2014/23/section/42/enacted   
4. The Safeguarding Adults report is accompanied by a Data Quality Statement and a quantitative data quality assessment based on the completeness of the data submitted and a number of logical data consistency checks. Submissions were received from all 152 CASSRs in England.
5. The Deferred Payment Agreements report contains aggregate information submitted by all 152 CASSRs in England for the period 1 April 2018 to 31 March 2019.
6. The DPA data collection was introduced in 2015, and the first data collected related to DPAs active between 1 April 2015 and 31 March 2016. The 2015-16 collection was voluntary to submit and 56 local authorities provided data. The 2016-17 collection was mandatory, but a large portion of the return was voluntary. The 2017-18 collection was fully mandatory and did not contain any voluntary elements. In 2016-17 the DPA data was published as part of the Adult Social Care Activity and Finance Report.

NHS Digital is the national information and technology partner of the health and care system.  Our team of information analysis, technology and project management experts create, deliver and manage the crucial digital systems, services, products and standards upon which health and care professionals depend.  During the 2018-19 financial year, NHS Digital published 287 statistical reports. Our vision is to harness the power of information and technology to make health and care better.

For media enquiries please contact media@nhsdigital.nhs.net or telephone 0300 30 33 888. Follow us on Twitter: @NHSDigital