Receiving a concern, and deciding what to do with it

Amara What actually changes when the concern lands on my desk rather than me passing it up?

Nadia You become the person who decides. And the temptation that arrives with that is filtering.

Amara Deciding something is probably nothing.

Nadia Exactly. And here is why that is so dangerous. You hold one incident. The local authority might hold four others, from three different services, about the same person or the same worker.

Amara So my judgement is based on a fraction of the picture.

Nadia Always. Which is why the threshold for you is not whether abuse occurred. It is whether a concern exists that somebody with more information should look at.

Amara And if I decide not to refer?

Nadia Then record that decision as carefully as you would record a referral. The reasoning, the date, what you knew at the time.

Amara Why so carefully, if nothing happened?

Nadia Because an unrecorded decision not to refer is indistinguishable from not having noticed. And if it turns out badly, that is exactly how it will be read, and you will have no way of showing you thought about it at all.

Amara Let us do the hard one. An allegation against one of my own staff.

Nadia Which is where leads perform worst, and it is nearly always loyalty rather than negligence.

Amara What is the sequence?

Nadia Immediate safety of the person first. Then consider removing the staff member from contact. Then refer to the local authority, and the police if a crime may have been committed. Employment process last, running in parallel.

Amara My instinct would be to ask him what happened first.

Nadia And that instinct is the mistake. Putting the allegation to him before referring is investigating. It contaminates evidence, and it hands somebody an opportunity to influence witnesses who are also your staff.

Amara Do I have to suspend?

Nadia Not automatically, and suspension is often described as a neutral act when it is nothing of the sort for the person suspended. Consider redeployment away from contact first.

Amara But?

Nadia But never leave somebody in contact with the person while a serious allegation is unresolved. Those are the two errors, and they sit on opposite sides: suspending reflexively, and leaving somebody in place because you cannot believe it of them.

Amara Information sharing. Do I need consent?

Nadia Normally seek it. You can override it where there is a risk of serious harm to the person or others, where a child is at risk, where there is a legal obligation, or in defined public interest grounds like preventing serious crime.

Amara And how much do I share?

Nadia The minimum necessary, with the people who need it, for that specific purpose. Record what, to whom, and why.

Amara Anything leads get wrong?

Nadia One thing, and it is Caldicott principle seven. The duty to share information for someone's care is as important as the duty to protect confidentiality. Under pressure people become over cautious and withhold, and failing to share has killed people.

Amara Last thing. The record.

Nadia Same day. Facts, times, exact words in quotation marks, who was present, what you did, who you told and when, and your reasoning.

Amara How careful do I need to be?

Nadia Write it as though a coroner will read it, because safeguarding records end up in three places: a coroner's court, a safeguarding adults review, or a tribunal. No conclusions you cannot support, no speculation about motive, and never amend it later without the amendment being visible and dated.