The Kensington and Chelsea Adult Social Care & Health Select Committee convened on 6 November 2025, commencing with 72 seconds of silence to honour the 72 lives lost in the Grenfell Tower fire. The committee then addressed key reports concerning safeguarding and complaints, and outlined forthcoming initiatives in these domains.
Cllr Lucy Knight, Chair of the Adult Social Care and Health Select Committee, greeted participants at Kensington Town Hall and those joining via YouTube livestream, before the moment of silence.
Following the silence, the committee addressed apologies for absence, declarations of interest, and confirmation of the minutes from the previous meeting held on 18 June 2025.
The main items on the agenda included the Safeguarding Adults Executive Board (SAEB) Annual Report 2024-25 and the Annual Complaints Report.
Safeguarding Adults Executive Board Annual Report
Aileen Buckton, Chair of the Board, presented the Safeguarding Adults Executive Board Annual Report 24-25. The report detailed the work of the SAEB in coordinating safeguarding efforts for vulnerable adults in Kensington and Chelsea. Key areas of focus included community engagement, understanding safeguarding concepts across diverse communities, and the use of data to inform priorities. A key challenge identified was that the concept of safeguarding is understood differently across diverse communities, cultures, and experiences within Kensington and Chelsea, requiring careful translation of both language and underlying concepts.
Buckton highlighted the importance of community engagement, noting that the board had focused on embedding this work firmly. She shared an example of how community feedback led to changes in their approach to ensure information was accessible to individuals with neurodiversity issues. Specifically, the SAEB adjusted its community outreach to improve information accessibility, leading to the involvement of an ambassador who now reviews public reports to address neurodiversity concerns. The report also emphasised the importance of understanding how different communities perceive safeguarding. Buckton noted a significant increase in safeguarding referrals, mirroring a trend seen across London. This increase is attributed to an overall rise in referrals to adult social care services. Kensington and Chelsea is addressing this increase through a strong partnership between the Adult Safeguarding Board and other organisations, as well as widening the groups of people they work with. The council also remodeled their safeguarding structures to future-proof the systems and pathways in place in anticipation of an increasingly older age group.
The SAEB uses data on safeguarding referrals, including referrals to adult social care, to inform its priorities. The report indicates a focus on understanding and responding to data in terms of the priorities that are set. The data shows a marked increase in safeguarding referrals, which is a significant change.
Cllr Knight praised the report, recognising the depth of the partnership and commitment to keeping residents safe.
Annual Complaints Report
The committee then moved on to the Annual Complaints Report 24-25, which provided an overview of complaints related to adult social care and health services received by the council. The report highlighted improvements in complaints handling processes, particularly in meeting timelines. Louise Smith, an expert on complaints processes, presented the report. Key themes in adult social care complaints were related to home care provision, including communication issues and delays in care and support.
To address the overlap between safeguarding concerns and the key themes emerging from the complaints, the council is remodeling the personal quality assurance team to investigate complaints at statutory providers, care homes, and home care services. They are also performance managing complaints to ensure they are appropriately classified and not misidentified as safeguarding issues. Learning from complaints is integrated into commissioning processes, frontline team discussions, and management practices. The council ensures that lessons learned from complaints are integrated into staff training and service delivery improvements by working closely with commissioning colleagues, reanalyzing complaints to identify areas of concern, and involving the quality assurance team in the tendering process. They also discuss complaints with frontline teams and managers to explore and unpick issues, and use this learning to support commissioners in commissioning services.
Cllr Thaxter acknowledged the improvements in complaint response times and the reduction in complaints compared to the previous year, crediting the team's efforts. The committee discussed key themes in adult social care complaints and how they overlapped with safeguarding concerns.