SCIE Practice guide 7: Making referrals to the POVA list
Preparing for POVA list referral
Practice point: Developing local policies
Employers and managers should have developed their
own local policy about
protecting from harm the vulnerable adults in their
care.
This may be a policy for their service, one for their whole organisation or one that is developed in the local area by the local multi-agency adult protection framework, committee and/or team under the No secrets/In safe hands guidance.
Local arrangements differ across the country so it is essential for each employer to find out about their local arrangements and ensure that their policy is written in line with these.
Example
Under No secrets/In safe hands, commissioned providers are required to adopt the local authority adult protection policy. The adult protection teams provide advice and support to providers working with these policies and procedures. The Adult Protection Committee in Hull and the East Riding of Yorkshire includes an outline of the POVA scheme in all its adult protection awareness courses and prepares updates for statutory and independent providers. Its revised local Adult Protection Guidelines and Procedures also contain guidance on the POVA scheme plus a copy of the referral form. The committee hosted a local event when POVA was first implemented, and provides a consultancy service for local agencies with queries.
Where a service is part of a large organisation, managers must ensure that they have read the organisation's policy and considered how it fits with the adult protection policies within their local area.
Example
Southern Cross Healthcare expects its homes managers to be familiar with the national organisational protection policy and to implement it appropriately within their local context, recognising that homes in different local authorities may have to follow different local procedures.
Employers and managers should clearly understand the difference between their local responsibilities to protect vulnerable adults in their care and the requirements of the POVA scheme - that is, to inform the Secretary of State for Health when they have dismissed a worker:
- Local adult protection policies and procedures are available from the local lead agency, which in most cases, will be the social services department of the local council.
- The requirements of the POVA scheme are set and operated nationally by the Department for Education and Skills on behalf of the Department of Health (DH). Details of the scheme are available on the Department of Health website.
Examples
- In writing the local adult protection policy for St Andrew's Care Services, the managing director included making referrals to the POVA list and working with the local adult protection team. Through this process, his staff are clear about their roles and responsibilities and those of the adult protection team. When they needed to make a referral to the POVA list, they knew what to do, what information was required, where to get the forms, how to complete them and where to send them. The whole process was carried out efficiently and speedily.
- BUPA has a national system for adult protection that includes the use of standard documentation for all employment processes and central decision-making and processing of POVA referrals.
