Self-assessment for adults and housing

I am delighted to present Dorset Council’s self-assessment review of Adult Social Care, a comprehensive reflection of our ongoing commitment to delivering high-quality, person-centred services for our residents. This open and honest review serves as a robust foundation for our ambitious vision for the future; to meet the needs of Dorset’s diverse and growing age demographics, ensuring we provide care and support that empowers individuals to live fulfilling lives.

A key pillar of our future vision is to recognise and embrace our unique demographic and establish Dorset as an Age-Friendly County, in alignment with the World Health Organisation’s framework. This self-assessment underscores our progress towards creating inclusive, supportive communities that enable people of all ages to thrive, with a particular focus on addressing the needs of our older population and those requiring care and support. By embedding age-friendly principles, we aim to foster environments where every resident feels valued, connected, and empowered.

I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to our exceptional staff team, whose dedication, professionalism, and compassion have driven significant progress across so many areas of adult social care. Their tireless efforts, alongside the contributions of our partners and communities, have strengthened our services and improved outcomes for residents. This review highlights these achievements while identifying opportunities to build on our successes and continue enhancing our offer.

This self-assessment is not just a reflection on where we are today but a springboard for our future ambitions. It reaffirms our commitment to collaboration, innovation, and excellence as we work towards a Dorset where everyone can live well, age well, and feel supported at every stage of life.

In my role as the Principal Social Worker, it gives me enormous pleasure to introduce our self-assessment and to have the opportunity to shine a light on the work our adult social care practitioners do. Our shared ambition in the Adults and Housing Directorate, and across the systems we operate within, is to engage with the people of Dorset to achieve a better life and to help them to:

• identify their strengths
• realise their potential
• live independently and well in their communities

Employed in our adult social care teams we have a talented, committed and innovative workforce, largely made up of Assessment and Support Co-ordinators, Occupational Therapists and Social Workers. They work skilfully and compassionately alongside people who draw on care and support and their families to build a person-centred understanding of their individual situation, often with colleagues from partner organisations. They provide information, advice and guidance to help people to stay as independent as possible for as long as possible, and when needed draw up a plan to enable them to live well in their communities, in line with the Care Act 2014 and other relevant legislation.

Our practice is underpinned by a strengths-based approach that enables us to understand what is important to and for the person, their hopes and dreams, skills and current support networks. This helps to build to a picture of what would make a real difference to the person’s life. Our practitioners are assisted in developing and implementing this approach by our two professional leads of practice, the Principal Social Worker and the Principal Occupational Therapist, who oversee our practice framework.

We understand the importance of unpaid carers and are committed to supporting them in their vital roles; we know that carers are key to realising our ambition of keeping the people of Dorset as safe and independent as possible. Our dedicated team of Carers Caseworkers work directly with carers to understand their needs and offer information, guidance, and if required services, to help them care for their loved one.

In Dorset we have recognised and embraced the importance of growing our own staff to assist with skill development and recruitment and retention within our workforce. We utilise apprenticeships and distance learning to support progression into registered roles and have also introduced career progression and lateral move pathways. In addition to our comprehensive learning and development offer we facilitate protected time for continuous professional development so that practitioners can undertake self-directed learning. We know that investing in our workforce is fundamental to enabling our residents to live better lives in Dorset.

We are committed to working in partnership with people who draw on care and support and to ensuring that they are not only able to exercise choice and control in how their personal outcomes are achieved, but also increasingly have influence in strategic decision-making, co-producing where possible with citizens. This commitment to citizen engagement runs in parallel with our approach to facilitating the participation of our workforce in designing processes and having a voice in the things that matter to them through our current ‘employee voice’ forum called Engagement and Quality Leads.

Dorset Council was one of the first local authorities to have a Principal Occupational Therapist (OT) role to sit alongside the Principal Social Worker. I am proud to provide professional leadership and strategic direction for occupational therapy at a senior leadership level. Strong collaboration and partnership working helps to implement continually improving, more joined up services to the residents of Dorset.

We have been developing our prevention offer and how we work with system partners to implement prevention at a much earlier stage for the residents of Dorset. We have improved our webpages and developed self-service digital options as well as community resources such as a Technology Enabled Care (TEC) Lounge and Greenwood Independent Living Centre. We have been looking at how we can position the right skills at our front door to provide an effective and accessible prevention offer at the first point of contact with adult social care. We have increased the use of occupational therapists in the front door which has enabled people to continue to engage in the activities they want and need through the use of reablement, technology enabled care, assistive equipment and/or adaptations to the environment.

We are passionate about innovation and look to try new ways of more efficient working whilst also improving the customer journey and reduce and delay the need for services. We are exploring the use of digital tools and artificial intelligence within the workplace as well as what could be utilised with people within their own homes.

We have embedded occupational therapy and social work apprenticeships and in addition to our successful Assessed and Supported Year in Employment (AYSE) programme there is now a revised preceptorship offer for newly qualified occupational therapists which supports a culture of continuous learning and improvement. Through partnership working with higher education institutions we are able to offer a wide range of student placements and guest lecturing which helps to promote recruitment into Dorset Council.

Quality Statement: Supporting People to live healthier lives

We support people to manage their health and wellbeing so they can maximise their independence, choice and control. We support them to live healthier lives and reduce future needs for care and support where possible:

• I can get information and advice about my health, care and support and how I can be as well as possible – physically, mentally and emotionally
• I am supported to plan ahead for important changes in my life that I can anticipate

Our strengths:

• updated our website content through co-production
• launched the Help and Kindness directory of information
• created a financial estimator tool accessed by more than 1,100 residents since implementation
• redeployed Occupational Therapy resource to our adult access team to ensure people get the right support at the right time and improve use of preventative options
• continue to promote a reablement first approach
• created community connectors offer from Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise sector (VCSE) that link people to local community resources
• Safe and Independent Living (SAIL) – key partner in this initiative
• we launched a new Birth to Settled Adulthood Service (B2SA) in April 2024 to ensure young people within 6 specific cohorts thrive as they move into adulthood. B2SA is a partnership approach across Dorset Council Children’s Social Care, Adult Social Care and the Dorset Integrated Care Board
• leading with system partners a transformation programme across the Urgent and Emergency Care through the FutureCare programme

Our plans to improve:

• continue our planned transformation and operational re-design to embed prevention
• development of our strategy to ensure prevention is at its heart
• continue to work on developing therapy into reablement
• Integrated Neighbourhood Teams Programme establishing across Dorset with active involvement of our adults and housing directorate

We have a clear ambition in Dorset to enable people to live independently and well within their communities. This means we are committed to ensuring people have easy access to high quality  information, advice and guidance when required. We have worked with subject matter experts and people with lived experience to ensure our website content is as accessible as possible to as many people as possible. Our Dorset Care Record enables a single view of the health and social care involvement for our residents, supporting our workforce to promote integrated service delivery for people. We are currently two years into a three-year transformation programme that has improved our advice and information offer to residents . Over 70% of new contacts into Adult Social Care do not result in the need for onward referral to our locality teams for assessment. Instead, we aim to prevent, reduce and delay the need for going care and support at our front door.

In 2024, the Adults and Housing Directorate signed up to the Centre for Ageing Better Age Friendly Employer pledge. Since that time we have implemented a number of improvements including:

• our DC shortlisting practice is “age blind”, meaning that age is not a factor when choosing candidates for interview
• Dorset Council’s flexible working arrangements are well known and appreciated by both employees and applicants, promotion of workers in their 50’s and 60’s, including at Director level and having more experienced colleagues working together with newer recruits in the office has helped with knowledge sharing

The new, digital platform for carers, Bridgit, was introduced to Dorset as a pilot in May 2023 with the aim to reduce inequalities experienced for carers. The platform supports carers to have better access to universal services, information, advice and guidance when they want to and has been accessed 12,555 times by carers. In its first year the Bridgit tool has reached 15,433 carers with 15,380 self-help plans being developed, this is around 1/5 of our carer population. With Carers Support Dorset we have co-designed our own locally-based content as well as a dedicated Dorset landing page to improve the customer journey. 700 Carers are now registered with Carer Support Dorset, the lead carer organisation for Dorset Council, and have obtained a digital Carer Friendly ID Card.

The success of the Bridgit pilot has led to the introduction of new modules including for Young Adult Carers.

We are proud of:

• our TEC lounge offer
• increased use of Occupational Therapy clinics
• dedicated resource for improving our IAG offer which has been co-produced with people across Dorset
• the prevention work we have done with carers and implementation of Bridgit Carers Portal

Quality Statement: Assessing Needs

We maximise the effectiveness of people’s care and treatment by assessing and reviewing their health, care, wellbeing and communication needs with them:

• I have care and support that is co-ordinated, and everyone works well together and with me
• I have care and support that enables me to live as I want to, seeing me as a unique person with skills, strengths and goals

Our strengths:

• strengths-based approach clearly embedded
• positive case audits to evidence strengths-based approach
• clear offer for carer assessments
• roll out of Birth to Settled Adulthood Service
• positive progress in Therapy Assessment model
• testing provider led review model
• new commissioned advocacy service to drive improvement in IMCA and Care Act advocacy
• Individual Service Funds for adults with learning disabilities
• housing colleagues embedded within hospital discharge and flow meetings

Areas for improvement:

• continued work to manage reduce waiting list numbers and ensure timely assessments
• we have an embedded cycle of audit to quality assure practice and are now moving to developing an action plan to address areas of improvement
• ongoing work to improve our offer around planned reviews
• enhancing our use of digital to enable providers to jointly support improvements in this space

We operate an integrated Home First model that supports the assessment and support planning for people to leave hospital in a timely way. Our Home First model embraces local partnerships and employs a trusted assessment model.

Since June 2024, we have had a targeted focus around our waiting lists for both Occupational Therapy and Strengths and Needs Assessments. We know this was a key area of improvement for us following our Peer Review. Since the Review, we have sought to improve our consistency in practice and reporting on waiting lists. We are doing this with a clear target to reduce waiting lists ensuring they are well managed based on risk. The introduction of our ‘waiting well’ guidance means that everyone has an equitable experience whilst waiting for an assessment and robust risk management processes are embedded across our systems.

During the Peer Review in May 2023, it was highlighted that Dorset’s Direct Payment offer is not as creative, flexible and accessible as it should be. Following this, a project has been running to improve Direct Payments in Dorset. The project found that the primary challenge was staff confidence in offering Direct Payments. To resolve this, new practice guidance has been produced alongside updated training and an introduction of mandatory, annual update training for all operational staff.

Dorset are also moving away from a ‘time and task’ approach to Direct Payments and have developed an outcomes focused budget setting tool to promote more creativity and flexibility.

Dorset have redesigned its public facing website content. The content has been co-produced with people with lived experience, as well as subject matter experts within the council.

Dorset have been key partners with TLAP and the Southwest Direct Payment Network to develop national Direct Payment tools to support practitioners with their skills and confidence in offering Direct Payments.

Dorset have introduced an open dialogue approach with our Mental Health Act s13.1 assessments, this shift focuses on the outcome of the intervention being led by the person rather than the practitioners. This approach delivers significantly better outcomes for the person as they are fully engaged with the process and given ownership of their situation and how this is resolved.

We are proud of:

• the improvements in our waiting list activity
• newly implemented risk management tool to facilitate ‘waiting well’

Quality Statement: Equality in experiences and outcomes

We actively seek out and listen to information about people who are most likely to experience inequality in experience or outcomes. We tailor the care, support and treatment in response to this:

• I have care and support that enables me to live as I want to, seeing me as a unique person with skills, strengths and goals

Our strengths:

• feedback from parent carers and young people drove the Birth to Settled Adulthood programme
• we have used our learning to develop and invest in new posts. For example, dedicated Housing roles in the hospital discharge team and operational roles to focus on self-neglect and hoarding
• Oliver McGowan mandatory training implemented
• prisons – OT and Social worker link workers including accommodation for ex-offenders

Areas for improvement:

• as part of the ASC Operational Workforce Redesign we are using an evidence base to ensure we match our people resources to need as part of that addressing gaps in our offer to people who are neurodiverse
• on-going cycle of continuous improvement to ensure Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) is at the centre of practice and is supported by the greater visibility of the EDI action plan
• we are integral to work with the Safeguarding Adults Board (SAB) on Safeguarding in Prisons and understanding the prevalence of neurodiversity in the prison population

The aim of our participation work in Adult Care is to create a more balanced conversation between staff and residents about service design and delivery. By amplifying residents’ voice, we hope to shift the perspective of decision makers to a user perspective and share decision making power where possible. Through this we aim to create more equitable outcomes and services that work in partnership with residents.

In Dorset we use the umbrella term ‘participation’ to describe interaction with the public that relates to service delivery or creation. Participation takes many forms, and different methods are appropriate in different circumstances - underpinned by the Ladder of Participation. Each stage of the ladder holds value at the appropriate point. We recognise that Dorset is on a journey towards coproduction and to further embed co-production across the directorate we have created a comprehensive toolkit of resources that describe our approach to engagement, along with guides and templates designed to enable engagement across all service areas. The toolkit itself was developed through a participative approach with the workforce and is designed to embed easily into the work of both operations and commissioning teams, as well as into project work. The toolkit is currently being reviewed by stakeholders with the aim of an October launch.

Dorset is working to achieve a cohesive, inclusive and diverse workplace culture, We align to our Corporate EDI strategy but have a programme of activity taking place within the directorate. One example of this is our level of participative engagement within the council’s EDI network groups and at the council’s EDI Strategic Board, where Corporate Directors and other Adults and Housing Directorate colleagues are active members. We also actively encourage colleagues to join, and in some cases lead, the council-wide employee networks. We are aware that in Adults and Housing we have a key role in identifying and tackling structural inequalities, both within our internal workforce and those that impact upon our local population.

We seek out opportunities to influence the EDI work within our systems, applying our influence and insight where we can achieve impact. For example, alongside the Children’s Directorate, we have participated in the Social Care Workforce Race Equality Standard (2022 to 2023 and 2023 to 2024). This is an area of work that has gained traction alongside council-wide activity to improve our data collection on our workforce and health and safety reporting of experience with both colleagues and public . We also engage with local, regional and national forums, such as the PCH / LGA ‘Diverse by Design’ community of practice, which facilitate the sharing of good practice and ongoing learning.

Engaging in the process for 2024 to 2025. Through the ‘Diverse by Design’ community of Practice we have had the opportunity to benefit from Partners in Care and Health (PCH) and Local Government Association (LGA) facilitated workshops with a cross-section of our workforce to benchmark our internal EDI position using the ‘Diverse by Design for Adult Social Care’ toolkits. This has enabled us to identify our policy and workforce EDI priorities, and to complete a stocktake of our how we engage with the diverse communities we serve.

Our safeguarding team have recruited dedicated social worker resource to address self-neglect, hoarding and alcohol abuse. This a targeted approach to reduce inequalities experienced by these groups and ensure that specialist support is provided at the point of referral.

Our housing officers supporting ex-offenders are funded by the Ministry of Justice, and have met and exceeded targets relating to finding accommodation for individuals on release from prison and then supporting tenancy sustainment, once accommodation is found.

Quality Statement: Partnerships and Communities

We understand our duty to collaborate and work in partnership, ensuring our services work seamlessly for people. We share information and learning with partners, collaborating for improvement:

• I have care and support that is co-ordinated, and everyone works well together and with me

Our strengths:

• our Home First Accelerator (HFA) Programme improves outcomes for all ages of people who require hospital support (trusted discharge from hospital to reablement to homecare)
• with Partners, we enhanced the Reablement, Recovery & Community Resilience (RCR) offer, reducing hospital stays and fostering long-term independence
• housing recognised as a key partner in delivering our council plan and is integrated as a core part of the Adults and Housing directorate and is key to ensuring we get the right accommodation solutions for our residents both in terms of housing standards and adaptations to properties
• development of People and Packages dashboard enables a clear view of what has been purchased, the cost and where improvements can be made
• our strategic partnership via our new Local Authority Trading Company (LATCo), Care Dorset, enabled us to stand up System reablement beds quickly during Winter Pressures 2022/23
• we are a key partner in the system-wide FutureCare transformation programme
• linking housing, social care and health needs across our partnerships; joining up with Registered Providers of Social Housing to deliver our extra care, supported housing, homelessness and care strategies and delivery priorities
• Digital Connecting Communities Hub created with CVS to support people to know what’s available to signpost resident

Areas for improvement:

• development and mobilisation of an accommodation strategy
• we are re-defining our Technology Enabled Care (TEC) strategy to support better uptake, deployment and consistency across the sector. This will focus on building the confidence of individuals, families and practitioners

The importance of our partnerships and community focus has now been recognised through the Communities for All priority under the Council Plan. This sets our out ambition to create communities where everyone can thrive and where services are accessible.

Our engagement with partners and the market is founded on transparency, guided by our Commissioning Strategies. They outline clear messages to the market through Market Sustainability Plan2. We implemented Fair Cost of Care (FCoC) ahead of national requirements and reinforced this through uplift processes with clear rationale for our actions. Our priority is to enhance workforce terms and conditions, positively impacting care stability and sufficiency.

We seed-funded Dorset Care Association (DCA) to support the market – building on provider forums and boosting engagement. The DCA are central to several key initiatives including introducing Trusted Assessor Service in hospitals, training them to become Oliver McGowan Champions for learning disability and autism and in supporting International recruitment.

We link housing, social care and health needs across our partnerships. We join up with providers such as Registered Providers of Social Housing to deliver our extra care, supported housing, homelessness and care strategies and priorities. We run specific programmes to deliver accommodation with support, as well as care.

Through the re-design of our Dorset Care Framework (DCF), our contracts support the sector’s resilience – whether in zonal arrangements, the arrangements of Voluntary and Community Sector Enterprises Dorset Integrated Prevention and Partnerships Service (VCSE DIPPS) contracts which evidence strong commitment to engaging partners and providers to shape contracts and operational delivery.

Since we disaggregated our Local Authority Trading Company, creating Care Dorset, we have been working with the organisation on the improvement of its service offer. We were able to stand up their new reablement beds rapidly to support winter pressures, and this provision is now part of the future Pathway 2 programme in FutureCare. Their reablement is at the core of FutureCare’s Pathway 1 work, and our developing approach to reablement at the front door. We know that improvement is needed in the quality of the estate, especially in residential care, and that some of the physical environments drive the difficulty in continuing to improve the culture and service quality. The most inadequate of these buildings has been closed and is the focus of building the first of our new reablement centres, at Sidney Gale House in Bridport.

This developmental approach to specifying prevention services created a collaborative arrangement, prioritising ‘no wrong front door’. This approach to accessibility and responsiveness is also evident in the Care Dorset Reablement and RCR provision, with feedback loops to providers supporting continuous improvement.

This is informed by positive co-production and engagement. For example, our work to redesign day opportunities is founded on a number of years of engagement and planning, and now a formal consultation. This will pave the way for a deeper co-production approach to redesigning individual services in line with the new model. Significant engagement with professionals, including Care Home representatives, in developing the Dorset Care Framework 2 (DCF2) Care Homes service category modelling evidences our partnership working too. Additionally, Commissioners holding dedicated workshops with providers, often supported by DCA, to understand opportunities and unblock challenges.

Further harnessing of DCF2 opportunities via tendering activity to capitalise on Part 1, to capitalise on the range of services such as homecare, mental health and care homes.

Developing our Contract Management and Quality Assurance approaches in line with our ambition for provider relationships, balancing clear risk management with ongoing strategic relationships – speaking with one voice to provider market.

The relaunched Stakeholder Advisory Group (SAG) aims to foster collaboration and delivery across the social care, health, voluntary and community sectors; this has resulted in Dorset achieving a high-quality and sustainable provider market. The group facilitates Stakeholder Conversation events to address key challenges communities in Dorset encounter, allowing all strategic partners to learn about these topics together.

We have a developing engagement team plan and strategy which encompasses a range of activity and projects planned in a phased delivery over the next 2-3 years. The aim is to ensure we meet our commitment to prioritise the voices of the people we support, their families, carers and wider Dorset community in our decision-making and learning processes.

Our work with our housing colleagues is essential to preventative and community-based solutions. This is also a priority area for our Council plan. Our Housing plan sets out our vision to utilise Extra Care housing solutions to prevent a person’s needs from escalating and support people to live independently in their own communities for longer.

We are proud of:

• co-producing our future model for day opportunities and the AMHP data capture on protected characteristics of people who have Mental Health Act Assessments to inform good practice
• positive and transparent market relationships
• collaboration and partnership working across the Integrated Care System
• Dorset Care Framework 2 achieving sustainable rates for both providers and the council

Quality Statement: Care provision, integration and continuity

We understand the diverse health and care needs of people and our local communities, so care is joined-up, flexible and supports choice and continuity:

• I have care and support that is co-ordinated, and everyone works well together and with me

Our strengths:

• our carers tool Bridgit enables us to analyse what support carers seek, so responses can be developed
• we work effectively across the wider council and System wide partners to gather intelligence, respond to market gaps and pressures, and form strategy
• data and insights from Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA), Dorset Intelligence and Insight Service (DiiS), and other national sources, as well as Co-production approaches, provide a strong foundation for our commissioning strategies. This is enhanced by access to Dorset Care Record (DCR) for more individual details on people’s health and care needs to tailor their support
• our DCF2 Care Home and Homecare frameworks are shared with our NHS colleagues, this is the basis of a shared approach to commissioning and market management

Areas for improvement:

• we are developing a framework to increase the use of Individual Service Fund (ISF) and plan to procure later in the year and get providers onto the DCF2
• we recognise the importance of fully utilising the data and insights within DiiS and our own intelligence to inform our commissioning requirements and understand more detailed demographic demands and forecasts
• we extended our Carers contract with our existing provider with some new initiatives for mental health and young carers. We are preparing to re-tender the market next year and are currently engaging the wider market and carers to inform our new specification

We are proud of:

• stable and sufficient home care provision
• good quality provision across our local market (CQC scores)
• a positive flow of information from providers on safeguarding concerns
• voluntary and community sector engagement, including VCSA
• our Dorset Care Record represents a successful partnership approach to a comprehensive patient record system across Dorset

We understand our demographics. We have the oldest over 65 population in England and have made strategic choices to seize the opportunity this offers to develop thriving communities so people can be empowered to help themselves, and others. A whole life journey approach is at the heart of our Birth To Settled Adulthood (B2SA) Programme, and in how we support ageing people with Learning Disabilities whose primary needs evolve. We are future proofing our contracts through DCF2, for example, joint children’s and adults To enhance consistency of care for people on the pathway from child to adulthood, and ensuring 65yr+ care homes can meet people with LD where appropriate. Creative and targeted use of Market Sustainability Improvement Fund (MSIF) to address priority areas and move closer to FCoC helped us achieve strong sufficiency in home care and supported living. We aligned with preventive priorities by increasing carers salaries above National Minimum Wage (NMW) in these market areas. Additionally, we extended support to older people care homes, investing as much funding as possible to narrow the gap to FCoC, aligning DCF2 rates between 85% and 95% of full FCoC.

We are an effective System Partner to our Integrated Care System (ICS) colleagues, balancing our social care community demands with that of the Urgent Emergency Care (UEC) pathways to support ICS performance. As lead commissioner of the RCR Schemes supporting Pathway 1, and our plans for future development of Reablement centres, we are providing key interventions to improve outcomes and offer solutions to Partners demand and system flow challenges.

We apply a robust Quality Assurance approach across the local market, offering both proactive and planned interventions, while remaining responsive to changing or deteriorating events. We are developing a stratified and consistent contract and quality management approach, with provider feedback forms central to the ongoing development of the service and to our quality and contract management systems.

Accommodation for complex supported living in county, and for people with and forensic needs, remain key focal points for development. This exemplifies the service development we will deploy via DCF2, as we strengthen our contracting relationships with the market. The development of older peoples care home services is another example where development of skills and resources is required within DCF2 provision to meet the growing acuity needs of the local population.

We have plans to develop a more flexible and community-based Day Opportunities offer, which is a key element of the Care Dorset Transformation activity, along with greater use of Reablement. Working closely with Operations, we are analysing the potential benefits of a ‘Reablement at the Front Door’ offer, both to individuals’ long-term independence, but also to support financial pressures.

We are developing our workforce in brokering and placement activity, across all market areas to support our market shaping ambitions. We developed a tailored training programme, with market specialist, to offer bespoke learning, development and mentoring.

Quality Statement: Safe Systems, Pathways and Transitions

We work with people and our partners to establish and maintain safe systems of care, in which safety is managed, monitored and assured. We ensure continuity of care, including when people move between different services:

• when I move between services, settings or areas, there is a plan for what happens next and who will do what, and all the practical arrangements are in place
• I feel safe and am supported to understand and manage any risks

Our strengths:

• a mature and effective safeguarding service that has an embedded approach to decision-making, following the LGA & ADASS safeguarding adults enquiries framework to support practice and decision making
• strong Safeguarding Adults Board with multi-agency support and cross sector commitment to learning together to improve response and quality of interventions with the person
• the six Safeguarding Adult Principles and Making Safeguarding Personal (MSP) are understood and applied throughout our work to ensure a robust and professional system of response to safeguarding concerns across the Dorset Integrated Care Boad (ICB) footprint
• embedded system of support for people experiencing domestic abuse.
• development of the Safeguarding dashboard enables improved oversight, quality reporting and enhanced practice
• regular meetings with CQC, Care quality monitoring group and safeguarding to share information and raising awareness of risk

Areas for improvement:

• our continued work to build improved transitional safeguarding arrangements within a pan- Dorset strategy, as part of the wider B2SA programme
• our investment in an independent safeguarding audit has reinforced areas of good practice and built an agenda for improvement in our safeguarding practice

The Dorset Safeguarding Adults Board (SAB) was established in 2009 and is the statutory board that co-ordinates safeguarding adults work in Dorset. It is independently chaired to ensure effective functioning, promote collaborative working, and hold partner agencies accountable for effective safeguarding practice.

The Board is responsible for developing and publishing a strategic plan setting out how we will meet our safeguarding objectives and how members and partner agencies will contribute. The Board also publishes an annual report detailing how effective the SABs work has been. The most recent annual report can be accessed here. The SAB commissions a Safeguarding Adult Review (SAR) for any case which meets the criteria (as outlined in its policy - Safeguarding Adults Reviews - Dorset Council).

The SAB has 4 sub-groups which are responsible for supporting the delivery of the strategic plan objectives:

• The Quality Assurance subgroup meets quarterly and focuses on the analysis of data to support understanding of and improvements in practice and ensuring Making Safeguarding Personal principles are embedded
• The Safeguarding Adults Review subgroup meets bi-monthly and leads on all reviews and reports directly to the main Board. The work of this subgroup is underpinned by s44 of the Care Act 2014. Safeguarding Adults Reviews may be complex and detailed. They are undertaken for the purpose of understanding and learning from individual cases to continuously improve the effectiveness of the wider system
• The Community Engagement subgroup (CEG) was formed in January 2022. The subgroup has attendance from a range of voluntary and community sector organisations including Dorset Volunteer Centre, Carers Support Dorset, Healthwatch and aims to extend its membership more widely to individuals with lived experience of safeguarding
• The Mental Capacity Act Subgroup focuses on strategic discussions about the Mental Capacity Act (MCA), Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS). The group provides assurance to the Board, that health and social care providers across Dorset apply the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA), including the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS)

In 2024/25, we delivered 21 formal training events including; Essential Skills courses, Webinars, National Safeguarding Adults Week in person conference and learning from SARs. The events were well attended reaching over 900 participants across Dorset Council employees and our partnerships.

Dorset’s Housing Options Team improved its staff induction, embedding safeguarding by ensuring all staff undertake e-learning and ‘Essential Safeguarding Skills’ 1-day course, as well as the mandatory annual safeguarding updates. Safeguarding has also been added as a standalone discussion on all caseworker’s 121s to ensure that it is at the forefront of the work that officers undertake.

Adult safeguarding quarterly webinars delivered to partners across the Pan Dorset region focussing on Modern Slavery, MARM, MAPPA, Transitional Safeguarding and Herbert Protocol. A total of 430 colleagues have attended these webinars.

There are regular monthly meetings with the Quality Improvement Team and Safeguarding team to share intelligence and information about provider concerns or trends and we are continuing to support High Risk Domestic Abuse (HRDA) process.

Since 2014 there have been four Safeguarding Adults Reviews (SARs) completed, and there are currently a further 2 in progress. All reviews highlight the importance of information sharing between partnership agencies. This is most recently referenced in the SAR ‘Simon’ and a learning tool was developed to capture the ‘7 golden rules of information sharing’.

Transitional safeguarding is an ongoing focus for the SAB and recommendations have been considered as to how this can be implemented within the Pan-Dorset strategy, feeding into our ‘birth to settled adulthood’ programme. This area is a high priority and Dorset are working jointly with Children’s Social Care to ensure pathways for young people coming into adulthood prioritise individuals’ safety and promote their independence and wellbeing. Dorset have information sharing agreements in place to enable adults and children’s services to share information where this is appropriate, and our transitions team have access to both adult and children’s safeguarding pathways to support their practice and enable risk to be managed effectively.

The Children’s practice briefing in respect of The Siblings LCSPR (MKE) also highlighted the need for information sharing between agencies as well as consideration of an adults needs when working with children at risk, promoting a whole family approach to practice as highlighted in both Working Together to Safeguard Children (2018) and the Care Act Statutory Guidance (updated 2023).

Dorset’s High Risk Domestic Abuse (HRDA) meetings will improve performance in our Multi-agency Risk Assessment Conference (MARAC) function, where audits reveal a need for better timeliness in information sharing and consideration of a more whole family approach and risk management. The HRDA and HRDA+ meetings follow the principles of MARAC but are held daily 4 days a week. HRDA’s are attended by a variety of partners including Adult Social Care and Housing, Children’s Services, the Police and NHS; responsibility is assigned to the appropriate service depending on the nature of the case and the risks presented.

We are proud of:

• Dorset’s Transitional Safeguarding work has been recognised both regionally and nationally
• transitional pathway jointly developed with Adults and Childrens services and launched across the system

Quality Statement: Safeguarding

We work with people to understand what being safe means to them as well as with our partners on the best way to achieve this. We concentrate on improving people’s lives while protecting their right to live in safety, free from bullying, harassment, abuse, discrimination, avoidable harm and neglect. We make sure we share concerns quickly and appropriately:

• I feel safe and am supported to understand and manage any risks

Our strengths:

• clear action plan developed following external independent review which supported a redesign of the service
• safeguarding adult’s enquiry activity and performance is shared quarterly with the SAB QA Subgroup to identify key areas of focus and thematic consideration
• an Integrated Domestic Abuse Service, which includes community-based support, accommodation-based support, single point of contact and recovery programmes for survivors of domestic abuse
• good safeguarding Multi-Agency working has developed with good information sharing and joint working, especially with the Police

Areas for improvement:

• to continue to roll out the nominated enquiry process across all of our frontline teams
• to continue to work with providers and communities in a preventative way, building confidence to make the right decision and when to refer to safeguarding

Following our independent review we have been working to ensure safeguarding is everyone’s business and Making Safeguarding Personal (MSP) principles are embedded and understood. We have implemented a Nominated Enquiry form and a pilot is happening in the Purbeck locality where the enquiry is undertaken by a worker known to the person with support from the Safeguarding team. This aims to improve the understanding and awareness of safeguarding activity across all operational teams and makes safeguarding everyone’s business.

There has been a focus on improving the number of people asked if they would like to set outcomes during the safeguarding enquiry process and a target of 85% was set by the SAB’s QA sub-group. Whilst this has been achieved (see Q2 22/22 scorecard analysis) it remains an area of continued focus and improvement as the number of people setting outcomes is still much lower than our target.

Anonymised case studies have been presented to the SAB to ensure that the voices and experiences of the person and their journey through services is understood, and areas of learning identified. Previous case studies have included a young person in transitions, a person who is homeless and safeguarding in higher education settings when a person is experiencing a mental health crisis, or they are neuro diverse. We have also presented a recent case regarding an older person who was being abused by their private carer with learning for both Adults and Children’s services.

We have seen a significant increase in the reporting of safeguarding concerns over the last two years. This is across the board in all abuse categories. Most concerns raised reach the threshold for a section 42 enquiry. There are very few concerns received that are ended at concern stage. Our data shows that advocacy is well utilised during safeguarding enquiries, either through our commissioned advocacy service or from family supporting the individual. Formulating a Risk Management Plan is also part of this process.

We are proud of:

• waiting list has been significantly reduced from September 2024
• achieving good outcomes for individuals following section 42 enquiries
• monthly High Risk Transitional Safeguarding Meetings to manage these cases effectively with a cross-Directorate approach

Multi-Agency Risk Management (MARM) Guidance was updated in 2021 by the Dorset and BCP Safeguarding Adult Boards and a series of short films with service leads across partners was developed to further inbed knowledge and confidence in the use of MARMS.

The Dorset SAB has undertaken work with the Community Safety Partnership (CSP) around the shared areas of domestic abuse, County Lines, Modern Slavery and learning from Domestic Homicide Reviews (DHR’s) where there is an adult with Care and Support needs. In January 2022, we (in collaboration with the CSP) created and published our Dorset Domestic Abuse Strategy. The strategy sets out how we will work with partners and the community to tackle and respond to domestic abuse over the next three years. Our commissioned service is one part of a wider system of support (commissioned by partners, and via grant funding) that supports people affected by domestic abuse across all risk levels and across their journey. This includes support for children affected by domestic abuse, support to people who are using unhealthy/unsafe behaviours, and multi-agency arrangements to tackle high risk cases of domestic abuse. Further awareness raising amongst faith groups is planned to raise greater awareness of domestic abuse in community and the services available to support them.

We recognise that particular attention is needed on young people transitioning from Children’s to Adult Services to provide a consistently good service. In 2021 a review of the transition arrangements between Children’s and Adults social care was undertaken, setting out proposals for improvement and establishing workstreams to deliver this. Collaborative re-design work is underway involving Children’s and Adults’ social care, SEND and local health services, under the guidance of a newly appointed independent Chair of a ‘Birth to Settled Adulthood’ Board. We are seeing the immediate benefits of Co- working improving knowledge and understanding across areas.

Quality Statement

We have clear responsibilities, roles, systems of accountability and good governance. We use these to manage and deliver good quality, sustainable care, treatment and support. We act on the best information about risk, performance and outcomes, and we share this securely with others when appropriate.

Leadership

Our strengths:

• Senior Leadership across the council remains strong despite recent changes, with a sound focus on planning for future sustainability; we have effective financial management and planning within a challenging context for growth in demand
• we have a culture of innovation and professional curiosity that drives improvement
• we have a set of performance and finance dashboards that give us a good grip over our financial
• position and how this is delivered across the market
• we have strong leadership with our voluntary and community partners
• we have a robust focus on practice leadership

Areas for improvement:

• development of our Equality Diversity and inclusion offer and how we engage with our workforce and Dorset residents are also areas of focus

Our experienced Senior Leadership Team remains stable and has been strengthened by a Quality Assurance function and Strategic Lead across the Integrated Care System to ensure we are working in the right way and have oversight and assurance of system quality.

We have a well-established Governance framework across Adults and Housing which oversees risk and decision making. Our elected cabinet members receive monthly briefings. Oversight and accountability for the budget is a real strength with a clear budget setting process, this was a key finding of our Peer Review.

We are proud of:

• our strong corporate offer of wellbeing support for all council employees, including access to talking therapies, mindfulness, and counselling
• our innovative approaches to recruitment

We use a variety of platforms to engage with our staff, these Staff engagement sessions include:

• monthly newsletters
• weekly vlogs
• show and shares
• webinars
• team visits

Directorate roadshows take place across the county every quarter, with a focus on building connections between our leadership team and wider workforce. We also use regular employee surveys.

This engagement has improved communication across the directorate, allowing our leadership team to hear, understand and act on the real issues that staff are facing.

We actively encourage participation in quarterly Leadership and Management programmes that bring together leaders from across the whole council to share good practice. Annual recognition programmes include Adults and Housing awards to recognise great practice and behaviours. We have recently celebrated over 100 colleagues who have over 20 and 30 years’ service for the council.

Below are also some quotes from our staff who enjoy making a difference in Dorset:

“I joined to work locally, I stayed because of the culture”

“Even something small, like enabling someone to connect with a support service In their community can have a positive impact”

“Working with adults with learning disabilities is such a privilege; I love being able to make a difference to people’s lives”

We are proud of our workforce; we are actively growing our future leaders and have active development programmes that serve to grow our aspiring:

• occupational therapists
• social workers
• approved mental health practitioners (AMHPs)
• best interest assessors (BIAs)
• leaders (through apprenticeships, coaching, mentoring and the ICS leadership training)

Developing a permanent and stable workforce continues to be a priority for the directorate and significant progress in reducing vacancies has been made through a successful centralised recruitment programme. Between October 2024 and March 2025 48 vacant posts were filled across the Adults Directorate, including Social Workers, Occupational Therapists and Assessment Support Coordinators. Degree apprenticeships for Occupational Therapists and Social Workers support career progression into difficult to recruit to areas. The involvement of people with lived experience at the centre of recruitment processes to senior and strategic positions within the directorate has been our standard practice for some time now, and we have now built on this approach by routinely including experts by experience in arrangements for interview panels for regulated professionals. We are currently exploring ways of further embedding how people with lived experience can have influence in our recruitment methodology.

The ongoing deployment of a peripatetic workforce has opened opportunities for flexible practitioners to work across teams as demand requires. This agility helps us to respond to specific needs of the Service or individual teams and enables our operational workforce to develop broad and transferable skills. Our Workforce Lead maintains a workforce strategy and associated implementation plan and incorporates learning from regional and national forums into our focus on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion. Our Research Lead is delivering innovation and supporting evidence-based practice.

Our Compliments and Complaints Team ensure a consistent approach to complaints management and report into our Quality Assurance forum to both inform and challenge Adults Services for learning and actions. We resolve most complaints informally and continue to have low numbers progressing through statutory processes. We are developing a thematic approach to our learning across Complaints, Adverse Incidents and Ombudsman reports to ensure organisational lessons are learnt and implemented, customer feedback is also an integral part of that learning.

We continuously improve and refine how we use our data and intelligence. A suite of performance data and dashboards are used by managers across our workforce, safeguarding and locality teams.

A Quality Assurance framework has recently been embedded

This process consists of five interconnected stages arranged in a continuous cycle:

• set standards and agree new priorities – Establish benchmarks and identify key focus areas.
• audit and quality assurance activities – Conduct evaluations to ensure standards are being met.
• analyse and interpret information – Examine data to gain insights and identify trends.
• feedback from practitioners, experts by experience, and partnership boards – Gather input from key stakeholders to inform improvements.
• review and Improve – Reflect on findings and implement changes to enhance quality

We have a bi-monthly lived experience reference group, a monthly workforce engagement group (Engagement and Quality Leads), a monthly Ops and Commissiong group and a quarterly board with senior leaders.

The Engagement and Quality Leads (EQLs) forum, which was formed in 2023 and delivers on its core principle of ‘leadership at all levels’, has been growing in reach and influence both in terms of developing practice and strategy. Our ambition is for EQL participation to be a point of consideration in all decisions and activities that will impact upon the workforce, and we are working towards this ambition. This means that ‘frontline’ colleagues are better connected to the strategic work of the Directorate than they have been in the past.

The EQLs , have contributed to and supported the development and delivery of over 50 pieces of work including our commissioning and workforce strategies, our carers policy, practice standards and process improvements such as direct payments. They are now an embedded part of our transformation and continuous improvement work.

Our Principal Social Worker and Principal Occupational Therapist are drivers of quality of practice and keep front line practice at the forefront of strategic improvements. One of the key areas of focus has been embedding Strengths Based practice across all our directorate teams and services. Monthly audits allow oversight of the quality of practice, provide direct feedback to frontline staff and collate feedback from those with lived experience.

Our Principal Occupational Therapist is part of Dorset’s Allied Health Professions Council and Faculty and the South West Principal Occupational Therapy network which assist in sharing best practice across the national and regional Integrated Care systems and local authorities. Our practice leads have embedded a ‘grow your own’ approach, support newly qualified practitioners through AYSE and preceptorship programmes and ongoing Continuous Professional Development opportunities.

We are proud of:

• our workforce engagement forum, engagement and quality leads, act as communication links to their teams
• our monthly practice audit, which is a conversational model and collates feedback from people with lived experience
• our cross organisation Quality Assurance Board for Adults
• establishing a principal occupational therapist role alongside the principal social worker

Quality Statement: Learning, Improvement, and Innovation

We focus on continuous learning, innovation and improvement across our organisation and the local system. We encourage creative ways of delivering equality of experience, outcome and quality of life for people. We actively contribute to safe, effective practice and research.

Our strengths:

• innovation through our TEC team and TEC lounge offer as well as equipment clinics expanded across the county
• our CPD offer over and above our mandatory/job specific training
• our new preceptorship offer
• a new research lead to support innovation and evidence based practice.
• equipment clinics expanded across the county
• a culture of creativity to test new ways of working through project and pilot work e.g. Front door offer and social value calculator
• implementation of learning from safeguarding adult reviews and adverse events

Areas for improvement:

• our co-production offer
• celebrating and showcasing our successes

We have several lived experience forums as a key part of our governance and continuous improvement programmes but have a vision to further develop coproduction; this vision has the commitment and support of the leadership team and portfolio holder.

Dorset is a place known for its openness to being involved in innovation projects. We have an extensive Digital Technology programme which links innovation around systems to improve ways of working and customer access, technology enabled care to improve and regain independence and better ways of capturing and using data to support safe and sustainable services.

Our Learning and Development plan is based upon a learning needs analysis. Our Learning and Development Service priorities are:

1. Staff within adult services have the necessary skills, knowledge, and information to practice safely and legally.
2. Provision supports recruitment and retention in the sector.
3. The team actively enables ways of working, systems and data that will improve offer to our customers and the wider Health and Social care sector.

Quotes from staff who have completed their ASYE or SWDA programme:

‘I am overwhelmed with gratitude for the report I have received.'

'My placement with the CMHT has been an incredible one. I feel very fortunate to have worked with such exceptional social workers and because of their patience and encouragement I have been able to experience the authenticity of social work within this specialism; the real challenges and obstacles which service users and professionals face and the incredible work which is carried out, every day to promote people’s independence and wellbeing and represent the service I work for.’

‘My team were very supportive and ensured that I had time to complete the necessary work. I had many shadowing opportunities both in my job role and as stretch opportunities. I have autonomy over my caseload and was supported to manage this at an appropriate level.’

‘Supportive and Creative Team who were prepared to allow me to undertake opportunities and grow in areas where I had little / limited experience. The feeling of the trust they had in me when I was not confident was huge.’

Dorset is involved in a range of local, regional, and national activities that deliver sector-led improvement including, working closely with Bournemouth University and the Health Sciences University. We are active in the regional ADASS network, we have supported research and literature especially in the Safeguarding arena and have contributed to national developments by the Royal College of Occupational Therapy.

We have received recent national recognition for our Section 117 aftercare work, our Programme Management Office team and transitional safeguarding protocol.

Awards

A Star of the Month award is given to individuals or teams who go the extra mile, to celebrate their work and share best practice.

Recognise the work of your colleague

Some examples of nominations could be:

• sharing of compliments or letter of thanks
• raising awareness of a piece of work and the impact that the individual or team had in its success
• highlighting the impact that the work had on local residents

An annual Employee Awards Ceremony is held every February in Weymouth Pavillion. Directorate employees are nominated and shortlisted for awards under several categories and presented with the award at the event.

An informal lunch is provided, and there is a fancy dress photo booth, quizzes and opportunities for networking.

National Social Worker of the Year Awards - a celebration of Dorset Council Social Workers who have been nominated and /or awarded a national award

Other professional awards

Our Programme Management Office (PMO) has been nominated and won a national award this year.
Best PMO Team – Silver Prize iESE Public Sector Awards 2025.