Safeguarding adults who lack mental capacity
Research type
Research Study
Full title
How is adult safeguarding performed with service users who lack mental capacity due to dementia? A micro-ethnographic inquiry
IRAS ID
201099
Contact name
Cathryn Meredith
Contact email
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 5 months, 27 days
Research summary
This inquiry forms the basis of my PhD thesis, which examines adult safeguarding practice with people with dementia who lack mental capacity to make decisions about how they are safeguarded. The person-led, outcomes-focussed approach to adult safeguarding advocated by the Local Government Association’s Making Safeguarding Personal initiative is now embedded into the Care Act’s statutory guidance (Department of Health, 2014). However, there has been little consideration of how adult safeguarding is approached with people who do not have mental capacity to decide the outcomes they want. In 2013/14, 28% of safeguarding adults referrals related to people who lacked capacity and in a further 29% of cases, the individual’s capacity was unknown (Health and Social Care Information Centre, 2014). The most reported condition associated with the lack of capacity was dementia.
I have designed a qualitative, micro-ethnographic inquiry in order to develop an understanding of how this aspect of adult safeguarding is performed, the tensions practitioners experience, and they are negotiated and resolved. I will be embedded in the sponsoring Local Authority’s dedicated Safeguarding Adults Team for a period of up to 6 months. I will follow practitioners - referred to in the sponsor site as Safeguarding Adults Managers (SAMs) - in their normal routines, observing and interviewing them before, during and after interactions with service users, carers and other professionals as part of the safeguarding process. Semi-structured, private interviews with SAMs will be conducted and audio-recorded directly before and after safeguarding meetings. With appropriate permissions, safeguarding meetings will be observed and field notes taken, but no audio recording will take place. The practice observed will be contextualised within the lives of people who lack capacity to consent, but they will not be interviewed. Data will be collected over a maximum of 20 safeguarding adults meetings.REC name
Social Care REC
REC reference
16/IEC08/0044
Date of REC Opinion
19 Jan 2017
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion