Making Safeguarding Personal (MSP) is a sector led initiative which aims to develop a personalised and outcomes focused approach to adult safeguarding work, and a range of responses to support people to improve or resolve their circumstances.
An exercise known as the MSP Temperature check was undertaken in 2016 by the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS), to examine local authority progress in implementing MSP. A number of recommendations were made from this exercise, which included the development of an MSP outcomes framework (MSPOF). Research into Practice for Adults (RiPfA) and the Institute of Public Care (IPC) were commissioned by ADASS, on behalf of the Local Government Association (LGA) Care and Health Improvement Programme, to work with stakeholders to create the framework which was endorsed and publicised by LGA and ADASS in June 2018.
In 2018/19 a pilot was undertaken to test the implementation of a voluntary national MSPOF data collection and reporting framework that would provide timely information to health and care practitioners and Safeguarding Adults Boards (SABs) to:
- Improve outcomes for vulnerable adults with care and support needs at risk of abuse or neglect
- Indicate areas for improvement in safeguarding practice
- Enable a robust mechanism for benchmarking and comparing results across in a consistent and standardised way
- Share good practice from local areas
Download a report on the voluntary activity of the MSPOF project 2018/19.
2019/20 expansion and development project
Following the successful pilot project in 2018/19, which established the viability of a national MSPOF voluntary data collection, feedback was received highlighting the potential for operational benefits locally. A business case was drafted to continue the project beyond the pilot phase. However this recognised further work was needed to increase the benefits and reduce the barriers to participation.
In July 2019 a new phase of the wider project titled Expansion & Development of the MSPOF was proposed and accepted by the MSPOF project Task and Finish Group.
The following presentation, Making Safeguarding Personal Outcomes Framework: review of 2019/20 expansion and development project, provides a review of the progress and how these relate to the specified project deliverables.
Project deliverables
- Expand: Promote adoption of the MSP outcomes framework. Improve coverage in reporting best practice by encouraging voluntary participation in the data collection.
- Report: Produce tailored outputs promoting voluntary participation in the MSPOF and demonstrate the value it can bring through sharing best practice.
- Access: Improve access to the existing learning enabling best practice to be shared and other useful materials to be signposted.
- Communicate: Engage with stakeholders through national and regional events and networks to promote the benefits of voluntary participation in the MSPOF.
- Identify: Identify and understand the barriers to adoption and explore and share solutions.
- Link: Develop links with IT system suppliers to understand and promote the role they can play in encouraging the MSPOF.
- Support: Encourage and support participating and other interested organisations.
Expand
- Over a 50 per cent increase in participation in MSPOF to date.
- More scheduled to join in quarter 4 prior to COVID-19 collection pause.
- First examples of participants able to capture and report data across all MSPOF metrics occurred.
Cumulative Count of Unique Volunteer MSPOF Participant Organisations
Report
MSPOF Reports developed in LG Inform providing an online resource for MSPOF to explore and discuss different service models and best practice.
Access
- Facilitation of quarterly MSPOF Task and Finish Group meetings acting as a forum where identification of best practice and signposting of developments and supporting materials can occur.
- National workshops held facilitating national discussions of MSP providing reassurance that organisations are moving in the right direction.
- Promotion of the “Knowledge Hub” in stakeholder events and in external communications.
- Increased utilisation of Making Safeguarding Personal Local Government Association web page to bring together historic and more recent developments of the MSPOF and how it sits in wider work regarding MSP approach.
Communicate
- Co-hosted with Research in Practice for Adults (RiPFA) national w orkshops: one in London and one in Manchester; c.60 delegates across both, the majority of whom had not attended previous workshops .
- National workshops facilitating a broader dialogue around MSP and how the outcome framework can act as a mechanism to maintain ongoing discussions on this locally/ nationally. A note on the workshops is attached.
- Arranged promotion of MSPOF to national Directors of Adult Social Services and senior social care data collection colleagues highlighting the benefits and synergies of the MSPOF with existing mandated national collections through NHS Digital national “September letter”.
Identify
Communication with stakeholders through the quarterly MSPOF Task & Finish group and also the national workshops helped identified new barriers to participation but also helped explore barriers identified in the project pilot in more detail which then informed action:
- Barrier: IT systems which don't support the framework, or that don't communicate with each other
Action: See project Link objective - Barrier: Understanding of MSP
Action: Produced targeted briefing documents and communications to Safeguarding Adult Boards and other audiences. - Barrier: Time and resource to gather the information
Action: Be clear in communication that partial submissions are okar. HIghlight where this information is already flowing in areas through the Safeguarding Adults Collection synergies. - Barrier : Professional nervousness about gathering feedback
Action: Tailored sessions provided around this at the national workship events. resource from event signposted on the Knowledge Hub. - Barrier: The way in which the board may use the framework
Action: Demonstrated how such feedback has been used and show how collective ownership and influence in this via the MSPOF task and finish group.
Link
To promote greater voluntary participation an objective existed to develop links with IT system suppliers to understand and promote the role they can play in encouraging the MSPOF.
Due to emerging developments surrounding a review of the national Adult Social Care Outcomes Frameworks (ASCOF), discussions amongst the project steering group (endorsed by the project SRO) agreed to park this objective, mindful that we did not wish to propose changes in IT system configurations, which were very likely to be changed again in the near future.
However, links have been made between the MSPOF and the ASCOF review work project to identify areas of alignment and support in the future.
Support
Quarterly MSPOF Task and Finish Group meetings continued to be held as a forum for participants to support each other collectively and promote best practice and learning.
Support provided via email or telephone calls both for people:
- looking to participate and requiring support for the collections portal
- those with a more general interest in MSPOF throughout the project.
Attended and presented at Safeguarding Adults Board meetings, promoting knowledge of MSPOF amongst partner agencies.
Summary
Progress has been achieved against all active deliverables in 2019-20 despite the COVID-19 lockdown late in the year.
Participation has increased during the year. Alongside this developments in reporting outputs have increased opportunities for additional insights to be ascertained relating to best practice in the delivery of MSP.
The well attended national workshops added to the ongoing discussions around successful MSPOF developments going forward.
Continued progress of the MSPOF and its work means that it is able to help support in future discussions and shape of the ASCOF in the future, if it is called upon to do so.