Are the safeguarding adults procedures only for social care or local authority staff to follow?
No. Any one (all health and social care staff, the person themselves, family carers, members of public etc) who is concerned a person appearing vulnerable is at risk of significant harm should consider making an alert to start the use of these procedures. If the person concerned is not known to Social Services or a CMHT, this process is started by phoning, or sending an alert form to the local authority (see contact details below). The procedures for adults are different to those of children, as the local authority safeguarding team for adults does not hold a case load or investigate. They give advice, assist with communication between teams and monitor referrals. The social care team however may take on the case if the person is not known to another service.
