Oral question asked in the House of Lords, by Earl Howe (Conservative). It was answered on Wednesday, 21 March 2007.

Vulnerable Adults

Question: My Lords, is the Minister aware of another area of uncertainty in the current law? When an investigation takes place in a case where a vulnerable adult is believed to be suffering abuse, there is no definition of what a ““satisfactory outcome”” might amount to. For example, apart from ensuring that the abuse has stopped, it is not clear what the responsibilities of the statutory authorities are to provide help to enable people to overcome the effects of abuse. Will the Government look at that?

Answer: My Lords, I understand that there are variations in how local authorities and their partners deal with reports of abuse of older people. No Secrets, the statutory guidance for local authorities, sets out the parameters for dealing with individual cases of abuse and defines a vulnerable adult, which provides a trigger for the involvement of multi-agency adult protection arrangements. It was not the intention of No Secrets that local authority adult protection arrangements should deal only with older people receiving social care services. We will look at this to ensure that the definition is adequate and properly interpreted at all times.

Secondary information