Reviews into deaths of two neglected Northamptonshire adults to be published soon

More than 18 months since they were first established the safeguarding adult reviews into the two people will be made public soon.

Safeguarding Adult Reviews are carried out under the Care Act 2014 and are commissioned when an adult dies as a result of abuse or neglect and there is concern that partner agencies could have worked together more effectively to protect the deceased.

One review, classified as SAR008, was launched in February 2018 and the other, classified as SAR010, was begun a month later. According to the recently published Northamptonshire Safeguarding Adults report for 2018/19 SAR008 concerns ‘organisational abuse, neglect, act of omission’ and SAR010 centres around ‘neglect and acts of omission by a number of agencies.’

The reviews were due to be published earlier this autumn but had been put back because of the general election.

At Northamptonshire County Council’s full council on November 21, chair of the Northamptonshire Adult Safeguarding Board Tim Bishop was asked by Cllr Danielle Stone why the two reviews had taken so long to be made public as she was worried about the length of time that had elapsed.

Mr Bishop, who is paid £20,126 per year for the work he does chairing the statutory board, said: “They (safeguarding adult reviews) do take an inordinate amount of time and it is always a challenge to try and get them published as soon as possible.

“Any reasons sound a bit like excuses, but one of the things that does take time is going back to family members with drafts to make sure their voice is being heard and to make sure they are comfortable the report is focusing on the things that concerned them.”

Nothing is known publicly about the circumstances surrounding the two deaths. The Corby and Nene Clinical Commissioning Group recorded in a safeguarding report in August that both reviews were going to an extraordinary adult safeguarding board meeting later that month and that learning from both reviews will be circulated widely among health professionals.

In total seven serious reviews are to be published in Northamptonshire. Besides the Safeguarding Adult Reviews there are three Domestic Homicide Reviews outstanding as well as two serious case reviews into instances where a child has been seriously harmed or died. This follows two serious case reviews published earlier this summer into the murders of two-year-old Northampton boy Dylan Tiffin-Brown and one-year-old Kettering girl Evelyn Rose Muggleton.