Two local NHS trusts recently came together to support learning and improvements in safeguarding in the Tees Valley.
North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust and South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust held the first annual safeguarding conference on Monday 11 March at Hardwick Hall Hotel in Durham. It comes as part of the two trusts’ working partnership under a new hospital group model.
Healthcare professionals from both local trusts came together to collaborate on safeguarding and explore the subject and further understand the impact of exploitation on safeguarding services for adults and children across the Tees Valley. It examined recent case studies, showcased best practice and offered opportunities for healthcare staff to enhance their professional curiosity.
Throughout the day, various speakers from both trusts and external organisations presented insightful sessions and hosted discussion around the various risks of exploitation. Attendees learned more about local and national trends and how life can look for vulnerable victims.
“Really thought-provoking”
Jenny Duthie, adult specialist nurse at North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust, said: “It was a really great day. It was fantastic to see so many people taking part and all the discussions happening around the tables. The presentations and the speakers were unreal – really thought-provoking and even as a practitioner I learned so much that I didn’t know.
“I actually received a phone call just yesterday from a colleague at the Trust about a significant safeguarding case. He told me that without the conference he doesn’t think he would have had the confident to know what to do – which was fantastic to hear.”
The pioneering safeguarding conference also discussed ways to build and maintain how to maintain resilience when working in increasingly challenging environments and improving engagement and outcomes for the patients we serve.
Lindsay Britton-Robertson, assistant director of nursing – safeguarding, at South Tees Hospitals, added: “We have got so much more complex cases, especially since COVID-19.
“In our Middlesbrough area, we’ve got loads of young people who are being criminally and sexually exploited. So being able to equip our staff with all of the different strands of safeguarding feels really challenging at times, but we hope we are delivering the key messages and are visible.”
Feedback from attendees
It was a fantastic day and there has been so much great feedback around your talk so a huge thank you from me.
I hope we have really provoked some thinking and practice changes, I’m sure we must have.
It was an excellent day, and the team’s hard work really came through. I particularly liked how they opened the conference by introducing the whole team in person and with the video.
I hope you get the positive feedback you deserve and thank you again for letting me be part of it all.
An introduction to the conference
Safeguarding Conference
Safeguarding is a really important part of everything we do and we work with some really vulnerable patients so it’s important that staff know what their responsibilities are in terms of safeguarding, know what’s expected of them, what to look out for and what to do when they’ve got concerns. So the Safeguarding team works to support staff in their roles. We’ve got so much more complexity especially since COVID, nothing feels straightforward there safeguarding with any individual always has lots of strands, lots of social economical, health difficulties, criminality and the exploitation agenda is huge and we know in our area Middlesbrough that we’ve got loads of young people who are being criminally and sexually exploited so being able to equip our staff to keep people safe with all of the different strands of safeguarding it just feels really challenging at times but we hope that we are delivering the key messages, we hope that we’re visible and we’re really working on doing more of that in order that our staff feel supported. It’s a job that I enjoy I’m really passionate about it and I think by being that passionate and sort of sharing that with staff across the trust it enables us to sort of really share that learning and that support staff to also fulfil their Safeguard duties. Knowing that we’re looking after babies appropriately not only looking after them in terms of safeguarding but ensuring that they are meeting their potential so they’re getting all the stimulation, wellbeing, you know that they need to grow to be healthy valuable members of our society. We do quality assurance checks out in the ward and it could be looking at making sure they’ve got MCA’s, they’ve got DOLLS, reasonable adjustments and it’s just kind of offering that support and guidance to stuff really and if there’s anything we can do to kind of help. My role within the safeguarding team is to provide emotional support for victims of domestic abuse and link them in with longer term support agencies that work within the area where they reside and also linking the children who now are victims of domestic abuse within their own right and also the abusive partners if they do want to change their behaviours and also link them in with longer term support agencies. I give them initial safety advice and I also provide staff that awareness sessions to cover the Trust so that they know how to deal with domestic abuse and if I’m not here they can refer myself and they can do that by numerous ways such as web ice referrals, BadgerNet referrals, there’s a South Tees email address and also my contact details should they need to have any of that immediate support or any information that they may need. I work within the safeguarding team because people with a learning disability of vulnerable so that’s how my role sits in it’s more of a supportive role within the team. There’s always somebody that’s here that signposts you to the necessary department that’s required with it being children, child, adult, MCA, mental health, learning disability there will always be someone to sign post. Feel really satisfied when we have lots of discussion at Team meetings, lots of creativity, those are the things I’m really trying to foster because it is such a challenging area of work and there’s lots of vicarious trauma that affects my team it does feel rewarding when we are able to support each other really effectively and come up with joint solutions. It can be quite creative putting packages together thinking of ways to engage staff and to make the training more meaningful and to embed it in practice and make it really relevant for staff but there’s lots of elements to the role so I say it’s not just the training, there’s quality assurance, there’s auditing and just making sure that the procedures that we put in place are working and are effective. No questions a daft question just give us a ring, talk it through any issues and if we can help we will absolutely help. Knowing that we’re making a difference to children and young people and unborns and supporting staff out on the departments and wards to fulfil their safeguarding duties and really know that they’re making a big impact on the lives of children young people in our area and keeping them safe from harm and being that opportunity to intervene at the right time and make the difference and sort of break that cycle of abuse that some families experience. I think keeping people safe is just as important as keeping people well in this organization so that’s a real key area for us to feel that we’re able to achieve that. Oh the rewarding part’s really easy! The rewarding part is when you’re able to support somebody who is really complex, they wouldn’t be able to tolerate having a procedure that is going to really impact and make such a difference to their lives if it could be done that successfully takes place and without the person becoming distressed and with a really good outcome that is the best feeling. I’m really proud of what the team achieve every single day and the fact that they come to work and they do this really, really difficult job to keep our patients and their families safe and that feels really, really rewarding.