Gateshead Safeguarding Adults Annual Report 2024/25

The annual report must demonstrate what the GSAB and its members have done to carry out and deliver the objectives of its strategic plan.  The following slides give an overview of the work of the board and its subgroups over 2024/25.

Strategic priority 1- Strengthening safeguarding

Strengthening Safeguarding practice across the partnerships and ensuring resources are available to support practitioners in their day-to-day safeguarding activities and that good practice is evidenced and practitioners can develop their knowledge and skills in this area.

Understanding safeguarding guidance

To improve consistency and confidence in safeguarding practice, the Board developed and published Understanding Safeguarding Guidance, now available on the GSAB website. This resource supports practitioners in making informed decisions regarding safeguarding concern referrals and identifying alternative, more appropriate referral pathways. The launch of this guidance was supported by multi-agency briefings, ensuring widespread awareness and understanding across the partnership.

Subgroup highlight reports

The Board continues to strengthen its governance arrangements. Highlight reports from Subgroups are presented at each quarterly Board meeting, ensuring transparency and accountability. A Governance Framework has been developed to formalise roles, responsibilities, and reporting structures. In addition, the implementation of an annual audit provides assurance to the Board and its members regarding the effectiveness of safeguarding arrangements and the Board's ability to meet its statutory responsibilities under the Care Act 2014.

Risk Register

A GSAB Risk Register has been established to identify and monitor risks that may impact the Board's ability to fulfil its statutory duties. This tool supports the delivery of the Strategic Plan 2024-2027, ensuring that safeguarding work across member and partner agencies remains effective and responsive to local needs. The register aligns with the Care Act's emphasis on partnership working and continuous improvement.

Safeguarding concerns

Progress has been made in streamlining the process for submitting safeguarding concerns, particularly in relation to referrals from TWFRS (Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service), GPs, and GHFT (Gateshead Health NHS Foundation Trust). These improvements aim to reduce duplication, improve clarity, and ensure timely responses to safeguarding issues.

Revision of the Decision-Making Guidance

Work is underway to revise the decision-making tool, with a focus on enhancing its usability and alignment with current practice. In collaboration with Gateshead Council's Commissioning Service, efforts are being made to implement a robust process for the reporting, monitoring, and analysis of low-level concerns, ensuring these are appropriately addressed and escalated where necessary.

Making safeguarding personal

The GSAB Dashboard now includes detailed data on consent and safeguarding outcomes, providing greater transparency and insight into the effectiveness of safeguarding interventions. This data is critical in understanding how individuals experience the safeguarding process and whether their desired outcomes are being achieved.

To support this, significant work has been undertaken to improve the recording and reporting mechanisms within Mosaic, the local authority's social care case management system. These improvements are designed to ensure that data captured during the Section 42 Safeguarding Enquiry process is both accurate and meaningful. This includes refining how outcomes are recorded, ensuring that practitioners are prompted to capture whether the individual's desired outcomes were identified, pursued, and ultimately achieved.

These developments contribute to a more robust evidence base for safeguarding practice, enabling the Board to monitor performance, identify areas for improvement, and ensure that safeguarding activity remains person-centred and outcome-focused. The enhanced data also supports compliance with statutory duties under the Care Act 2014, particularly in relation to making safeguarding personal.

Safeguarding Transitions Protocol

Transition to adulthood can be a particularly challenging time for some young people, who are particularly vulnerable and require additional support. Learning from Safeguarding Adult Reviews has highlighted how ineffective transition planning can contribute to young people "slipping through the net" or "facing a cliff edge" with tragic consequences. Recent Safeguarding Adult Reviews reflect this learning, with some common themes identified, including the young person being at high risk of exploitation, alcohol and substance use with no identified support needs under the Care Act.

This protocol has been developed jointly with the Gateshead Safeguarding Children's Partnership (GSCP) and aims to promote robust transitions between children and adult services. The Joint Safeguarding Transitions Protocol was finalised during 2024/25, following approval by the GSAB and GSCP it was published on the both the GSAB and GSCP Website.

Strategic priority 2 - Learning and development

The GSAB will provide a multi-agency learning and development offer to promote a culture of continuous learning to ensure we have a workforce which is knowledgeable and confident in safeguarding adults.

SAR Learning Register

In 2024/25, we committed to developing a Safeguarding Adult Review (SAR) Learning Register to systematically capture and monitor learning from SARs and thematic reviews. The register is designed to:

• Clearly record key learning recommendations and emerging themes.
• Track progress on implementing changes in practice.
• Identify areas where sustainable improvement has not yet been achieved.

The register is updated following each SAR and incorporates feedback from partner agencies, including evidence of improvements or barriers to implementation. This approach ensures accountability and supports continuous learning across the safeguarding partnership.

See also Multi-Agency Learning and Development 2024/25.

Strategic priority 3 - Data and information (See our performance 2024/25)

Strategic Priority 4 - Prevention of Harm

The GSAB recognises the need to prevent harm from occurring rather than responding once the harm has occurred.

Blue Light Project

One of the recommendations from the Thomas SAR was for the GSAB should consider the development of  assertive outreach capacity for people with multiple complex needs.  In light of this recommendation the LA agreed to fund the implementation of the Blue Light Approach in Gateshead.

The Blue Light Approach implementation project launched in Gateshead during 2024/25, with full endorsement from the GSAB. Its success relies on strong collaboration across partner organisations and a well-equipped workforce, ensuring staff have the skills and knowledge needed to provide effective support to individuals facing complex and multiple needs.

Blue Light is a national initiative used throughout the country and has been implemented in several LA areas including Northumberland with great success.  The focus of Blue Light is on supporting change resistant dependent drinkers who are difficult to engage, (NB the title of the project will be changed as there are concerns regarding the use of Blue Light in the title).  In Gateshead the brief is being expanded to also cover drug users, an approach which has been successful in other areas of the country.    

The outline model for the projects covers the following key areas:

• Development of a strategic statement
• Frontline staff are trained to identify and respond to clients
• A multi-agency operational group is in place.  This might be a standalone group or tied into other existing groups.
• Outreach is organised to serve this group
• Specialist services have a prioritised responsibility for this group; they don't turn them away because they are not engaging.
• Staff training in using legal powers with this client group.
• Evaluation is built into the system.

The LA are leading on the co-ordination of a task and finish group with representation from a variety of agencies including police, recovery services, NENC ICB, GHNFT, CNTW and people with lived experience.  The role of this group is to consider the model, agree that the model meets the Gateshead brief and decide how to progress with the programme.   The task and finish group will maintain oversight of the programme and ensure that updates are provided to all interested parties.  The implementation of Blue Light takes approximately 6 months however this is flexible to ensure local factors are taken into consideration.

It was recognised that the focus of the Blue Light Project is wider than the role of the Safeguarding Adults Board, and that representatives from wider teams within organisations (e.g. the Place delivery team in the NENC ICB) will be crucial to the successful delivery of the programme. The Health and Wellbeing Board and Gateshead Council's elected members have shown a keen interest in the programme, particularly in relation to the provision of an outreach approach, the potential positive impact on individuals and on local communities.  Arrangements will be made to ensure appropriate and timely updates are provided to these two groups as well as the Gateshead Community Safety Partnership and the Domestic Abuse Board, both of which have links into the programme.

Communications plan

A comprehensive communications plan has been developed to enhance engagement and visibility of safeguarding initiatives. The plan outlines key awareness days throughout the year and provides a framework for themed content to be shared via GSAB's website and social media channels, including X (formerly Twitter). This approach ensures timely and relevant messaging that supports public awareness, professional development, and community involvement in safeguarding adults. The plan is designed to be flexible and responsive, allowing for the inclusion of emerging issues and priorities as they arise.

Safeguarding Adults Week 2024 - See multi-agency learning and development 2024/25

Strategic priority 5 - Involvement and engagement

The GSAB recognises the importance of working with statutory and non-statutory partners to ensure we have robust systems in place to adequately represent the people who are involved in operational and statutory safeguarding.

Annual Development Day and Quality Assurance Challenge Event 

The GSAB held its Development Day in January 2025; which included it challenge event. All statutory partners were represented at the event along with wide representation from other agencies.  The purpose of the day was to decide collectively how best to achieve our strategic vision to:

• Strengthen safeguarding practice across the partnership
• Provide multi-agency learning that promotes a culture of continuous learning
• Ensure we have a comprehensive dataset which demonstrates the impact of all partner's activities
• Demonstrate the effect of our preventative offer
• Engage assertively with experts by experience, statutory and non-statutory partners and provides confidence to residents

In preparation for the day a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis was undertaken, see Appendix 2 for details.

Following the event the board refreshed the strategic plan identifying the actions which have been completed and adding further actions identified by board members.  The refreshed strategic plan was approved by the board in March 2025 and will be implemented during 2025-26.  The refreshed strategic plan can be found here.

Findings from the day

The findings from the development day have been used to update the strategic plan for 2025/26. 

Learning, data and organisational impact

• The partnership continues to explore how learning from Safeguarding Adult Reviews (SARs) and Domestic Homicide Reviews (DHRs) can be embedded across organisations to prevent future harm.
• There is a need to better use local learning to inform internal training and guidance, though challenges remain in evidencing the impact of this work.
• Baseline measures are lacking, making it difficult to track improvements and success. While data is available—including from advocacy and third sector partners—its use in shaping Board-level decisions needs strengthening. The newly formed Data Group presents an opportunity to improve understanding of how trends influence practice.
• There are limited mechanisms to demonstrate how SARs and DHRs are impacting individual organisations. Agencies operating across multiple areas face challenges in embedding learning locally, but this also offers opportunities to share lessons regionally and nationally.

Findings from the day - Strengthening safeguarding

• Partners reaffirmed their commitment to strengthening safeguarding across the region and nationally, wherever possible.
• A key priority identified was the development and alignment of safeguarding guidelines and policies. It was agreed that safeguarding leads within organisations must take ownership of ensuring their internal policies reflect learning from both national and local SARs, as well as policies adopted by the GSAB.
• A significant barrier to proactive safeguarding was identified in the over-reliance on Section 42 referral pathways, which are sometimes used as a default mechanism to mitigate organisational risk. In contrast, the Team Around the Person (TAP) approach, though more resource-intensive and reliant on senior leadership buy-in, was recognised as a more effective model for prevention and long-term outcomes. This approach aligns with recommendations from recent thematic SARs and offers opportunities for improved collaboration, particularly with emergency response agencies, through structured liaison with safeguarding teams.
• Another challenge highlighted was the reliance on individual relationships across agencies, rather than a shared understanding of each other's safeguarding processes. This relational working, while valuable, is vulnerable to staff turnover and can undermine consistent multi-agency practice. To address this, there will be a renewed focus on embedding knowledge of roles, responsibilities, and operational procedures across partner organisations.
• Looking ahead, there are significant opportunities to strengthen safeguarding practices. A more strategic and careful use of the Shared Care Record could become a vital tool in enabling timely and informed decision-making.
• By reframing safeguarding language and promoting a culture of shared accountability, we can remove perceived barriers and ensure that safeguarding remains central to our collective practice.

Findings from the day - Prevention

• In terms of prevention, partners agreed to consider adopting a more proactive stance by initiating Section 42 enquiries when three or more concerns are raised within a six-month period. Staff will also be supported with scenario-based guidance to help them identify alternative pathways when concerns do not yet meet the threshold for statutory intervention but may escalate if welfare needs are not addressed.
• To support cultural change, we will promote the principle that "safeguarding remains everyone's responsibility." This includes encouraging staff to voice concerns rather than viewing safeguarding as a handoff to specialist teams. Practical tools such as shared care records and a 'little black book' of safeguarding contacts will be developed and incorporated into staff induction programmes to support this shift.
• Safeguarding continues to be a shared responsibility across all services. However, staff have voiced concerns that GDPR is often perceived as a barrier to effective safeguarding, leading some to rely on Section 42 enquiries as a workaround. This highlights the need for clearer guidance and a shift in language and culture.
• We recognise that staff sometimes hesitate to make referrals because they feel a need to remain involved in the case. This underscores the importance of fostering a culture where raising concerns is seen as a proactive and collaborative step, not a relinquishment of responsibility.

Findings from the day - Involvement and engagement

• The GSAB continues to strengthen its approach to involvement and engagement by embedding existing pathways, such as young people's groups and mandatory NHS feedback questions, into its strategic planning. These channels provide valuable insights that inform our priorities and ensure our work reflects lived experience.
• A key focus has been identifying under-represented groups to ensure service delivery meets diverse and evolving needs. This includes exploring how questions like "How safe do you feel?" can be used meaningfully and sensitively to gather qualitative data that reflects real-world experiences.
• We have adopted a multi-method approach to data collection, enabling us to analyse what has changed, what has worked, and how successful practices can be shared and scaled. This includes capturing intent, evidencing impact, and ensuring that feedback loops are closed with visible outcomes.
• Importantly, we are working to embed aftercare planning as a standard part of safeguarding responses, ensuring that individuals have clear, supportive pathways once a crisis ends, reducing the risk of re-escalation and promoting long-term wellbeing.

Gateshead Safeguarding Adults Boards involvement in the CQC assurance visit

The GSAB was pleased to support the Local Authority during its Care Quality Commission (CQC) assurance visit in October 2024.

As part of the process, the Independent Chair of the GSAB was interviewed and provided a comprehensive overview of the Board's work and its key interactions with Adult Social Care.

The Chair emphasised that Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) remains a central focus for the Board. However, there was a candid recognition that the Board could have been more rigorous in its scrutiny.

Important questions were raised regarding statutory responsibilities, how they are understood, evidenced, and how partners are held to account.

The discussion also highlighted the critical importance of learning from Safeguarding Adult Reviews (SARs), particularly how organisations embed this learning and how they are constructively challenged when they do not.

The structure and governance of the GSAB were reviewed, including strategic priorities, implementation planning, and responses to complex cases and thematic reviews.

Initiatives such as the Blue Light Project were also referenced as examples of innovative practice.

Additional areas of focus included:

• The role of Healthwatch and its "Enter and View" powers.
• The use of data dashboards to support informed decision-making.
• Local Authority leadership in delivering statutory duties.
• Partnership working, triage processes, and the "Front Door" model.
• Subgroup contributions and their integration into the wider GSAB framework

There was a clear acknowledgment that further work is needed to strengthen EDI from a GSAB perspective. A recent SAR involving a member of the Polish community highlighted the need for greater cultural awareness and engagement. Similarly, discussions around the Jewish community revealed gaps in community knowledge that need to be addressed.

The Chair reflected positively on the collaborative spirit of the partnership, noting that all parties were "stepping up to the plate" with openness, constructive challenge, and a shared commitment to safeguarding.

Website relaunch

In January 2025, the GSAB proudly relaunched its newly updated and refreshed website, following a comprehensive redesign led by the LA Digital Team. The update was driven by a commitment to improving user experience, with a focus on enhanced navigation, accessibility, and visual appeal. The refreshed site now offers a more engaging platform for showcasing the work of the Board and provides the Business Unit with a modern way to share key safeguarding information, resources, and updates. Ongoing development is focused on expanding the range of materials available, ensuring the website continues to support practitioners across Gateshead and individuals seeking guidance or assistance related to adult safeguarding.

• The GSAB website includes:
• Information on the work of GSAB, including its strategic plan, annual reports, and Safeguarding Adults Reviews.
• Multi-Agency Safeguarding Policy and Procedures, outlining how local authorities and partner agencies work together to protect adults at risk.
• Resources and guidance for professionals, carers, and individuals using adult services.
• Links to other agencies and their work, such as: The Making Safeguarding Personal Toolkit from the Local Government Association.
• Guidance on Information Sharing, Whistleblowing, Positions of Trust, and Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS).
• Contact details for local safeguarding teams and reporting pathways for concerns.
• Safeguarding Adults Review Protocols and Organisational Abuse Procedures.

Weekly email circulation

At the beginning of 2024/25, the GSAB introduced newsletters covering key themes including adult and children's safeguarding and community safety. These newsletters were developed and shared to enhance awareness and engagement across the partnership. Building on this, the Board has now transitioned to weekly email updates, enabling real-time information sharing and allowing partners to disseminate important safeguarding messages and updates to a wide network across Gateshead. This shift supports a more agile and responsive approach to communication, ensuring that practitioners and stakeholders remain informed and connected.

Tri-x online platform

In April and May 2024, GSAB relaunched Tri-X, its online platform for hosting procedures. Prior to the relaunch, all procedures, protocols, and resources were reviewed and updated. To showcase the platform's new features, Signis, the Tri-x Provider, delivered three briefing sessions. Since the relaunch, usage data has been incorporated into the GSAB Data Dashboard and is reviewed on a quarterly basis. During 2025/26, the SG Business Unit will carry out a comprehensive evaluation of the platform's usage and present recommendations to the board regarding its long-term viability. continued usage of the platform.

Social media

We continue to actively use X (formerly Twitter) to raise awareness of safeguarding and highlight the vital work of both local and national organisations. With a growing audience of over 900 followers, our platform serves as an effective tool for sharing key messages, promoting events, and strengthening engagement across the safeguarding community.