Adult and Community Services

Protection of Vulnerable Adults

Advice and support

We are committed to preventing the abuse of adults and responding promptly when abuse is suspected.

Who is a vulnerable adult?

A vulnerable adult is a person aged 18 years or over who may be unable to take care of themselves, or protect themselves from harm or from being exploited. This may be because they have a mental health problem, a disability, a sensory impairment, are old and frail, or have some form of illness.

What is adult abuse?

Abuse is mistreatment by any other person or persons that violates a person's human and civil rights. The abuse can vary from treating someone with disrespect in a way which significantly affects the person's quality of life, to causing actual physical suffering.

Forms of abuse include:

Physical
Sexual
Psychological or emotional
Financial or material
Neglect
Discriminatory or social

Professional abuse can also occur in residential homes, nursing homes or hospitals when people are mistreated because of poor or inadequate care, neglect and poor practice that affects the whole of that service:

Professional abuse
Institutional abuse

Any of these forms of abuse can be either deliberate or be the result of ignorance, or lack of training, knowledge or understanding. Often if a person is being abused in one way they are also being abused in other ways.

What do you do if you are being abused or you suspect that someone you know may be the victim of abuse?

You should contact the appropriate community care management team relevant to the needs of the vulnerable adult. Adult and Community Services also operates an Out of Hours emergency service.

The police should also be contacted if there is a serious crime, injury or danger suspected. Your concerns will be taken seriously and will receive prompt attention.

You may want someone to contact us on your behalf and to nominate someone to speak and act for you.

What if the abuse is also a crime?

Where there appears to be evidence of a serious crime having been committed, against a vulnerable person, the police should be contacted immediately.

This should be done with the consent of the victim; however, there may be occasions when consideration should be given to override their wishes depending on:

The seriousness of the incident
The risk of the victim or other people
The capacity of the individual to make that decision

If you are worried about contacting the police you can always contact Adult and Community Services to talk things over first.

What will happen if abuse is reported?

Any form of abused reported will be passed to the Adult Intake and Access Team Referral Coordinator or Adult Team Duty Officer.

The referral will be immediately brought to the attention of the Care Support or Team Manager, who will decide if an adult protection inquiry should proceed. The manager will allocate the case to an appropriate team member within appropriate time scales, normally priority 1, which means an assessment needs to start within 24 hours.

If abuse is reported to Adult and Community Services, a member of staff will come and talk to the person (initial screening) as quickly as possible. If there is immediate danger we will aim to visit you or the person about whom you are concerned straight away.

We will work with the person who is being abused to help them make any decisions. Our priority will be to provide or arrange immediate protection and to ensure that help and support is received ending the abuse and ensuring this does not happen again.

We will not normally do anything or share information with other people without the permission of the person who is being abused. The only exception to this is in situations where others may be at risk of abuse or the person lacks the capacity to make decisions for themselves.

Once any immediate action has been taken the initial adult protection inquiry should normally be complete within 6 working days.

Other useful contact numbers

Police

Your local Police Station - 020 8984 1212
Community Safety Unit - 020 8217 5659
In an emergency - 999

Carers of Barking and Dagenham|

15 Althorne Way, Dagenham, RM10 7AY - 020 8593 4422

Age Concern|

884 Green Lanes, Dagenham, RM8 1BX - 020 8270 4921

The Commission for Social Care Inspection offers advice and support if your are concerned about someone who is in a residential or nursing home.

Adult and Community Services Complaints Team can also offer further advice and support on making a complaint.

Action on Elder Abuse|

Useful information on the state of elder abuse prevention within the UK.

Community Care Management Teams - Contact numbers

If the vulnerable person is already known to one of the Personal Care Management Teams or Community Mental Teams, then a referral should be made to that team.

Personal care management teams for older people (Over 65)

Tel: 020 8227 5140

For people with a physical or sensory disability between ages of 18-96

Tel: 020 8227 2915

For people with a learning disability between 18 and 65 years

Tel: 020 8595 1667

Community mental health teams for older people (over 65)

Tel: 020 8276 7888

Community mental health teams for people between ages of 18-65

Tel: 020 8276 7880