Commentary on Sections Annual report Section 44 – Safeguarding adults reviews
291.This section requires Safeguarding Adults Boards to conduct a Safeguarding Adults Review into certain cases in specific circumstances. The aim of a review is to ensure that lessons are learned from such cases, not to allocate blame but to improve future practice and partnership working, and to minimise the possibility of it happening again.
292.Subsections (1) to (3) stipulate that an SAB must arrange for a review where there is reasonable cause for concern about how the SAB, its members or some other person with relevant functions involved in the case worked together and either the adult has died and the SAB knows or suspects that the death resulted from abuse or neglect or the adult is still alive and the SAB knows or suspects that the adult has experienced serious abuse or neglect. This does not prevent the SAB carrying out a Safeguarding Adults Review in any other case where they feel it would be appropriate and this is set out in subsection (4). The adult must be in the local authority’s area and have needs for care and support (whether or not the local authority has been meeting those needs).
293.Subsection (5) specifies that every member of the SAB must co-operate in and contribute to carrying out the review and applying the lessons learnt.