All practitioners working adults with care and support needs and carers have a responsibility to the people they support to make sure that adult’s welfare is a priority at all levels of activity. Practitioners are individually responsible for being satisfied about the substance and progress of safeguarding plans for service users.

This Practitioner Escalation Policy relates to all individuals who work as practitioners with adults with care and support needs and carers. The policy should be used in all situations where there are concerns about practice, decision making or resource allocation. It applies whether the practitioners work in a paid or voluntary capacity, in the statutory and voluntary sector.

Examples of potential areas for escalation include

• Disagreement between agencies about interpretation and implementation of thresholds for intervention
• Concern or disagreement about the outcome of assessments, plans, decisions and whether the appropriate case management is occurring to safeguard and promote the welfare of the child/adult
• Where no, or inadequate, action is being taken by an agency or any other issue where a practitioner remains concerned about a child or adult
• Concern there is drift or unreasonable delay in progressing a case e.g. making a referral to Adult Social Care, resulting in a lack of sustained change and outcomes that have not improved
• A poorly articulated or constructed referral by a specific agency whether this is verbal or written
• Where there are concerns about practitioner practice or the practitioner is uncomfortable about the position taken by their own management linked to a specific safeguarding case which remains unresolved
• Within a VARM meeting, an invited agency does not attend

Warwickshire Safeguarding Adults Board’s Practitioner Escalation Policy provides clear guidance for practitioners. It offers a four-stage approach, including reporting and monitoring processes.

All organisations should have a policy for internal escalation of disagreements about safeguarding issues which is made known to staff in their induction and refresher safeguarding training. 

The Practitioner Escalation Policy and supporting briefings can be found below:

• WSAB Practitioner Escalation Policy
• WSAB Escalation Policy Monitoring Form
• WSAB Escalation Policy Monitoring Form (Word download)
• Frequently Asked Questions
• 7 Minute Briefing

For escalation in children’s cases, please visit WSCP’s Practitioner Escalation Policy page.