Safeguarding vulnerable people in the NHS: accountability and assurance framework

The purpose of this document is to set out the safeguarding roles, duties and responsibilities of all organisations commissioning NHS health and social care. The framework’s aims include: identifying and clarify how relationships between health and other systems work at both strategic and operational levels to safeguard children, young people and adults at risk of abuse or neglect; setting out the legal framework; promoting empowerment and autonomy for adults, including those who lack capacity for a particular decision as embodied in the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA), implementing an approach which appropriately balances this with safeguarding.