Wandsworth's Safeguarding Adults Board has reported that safeguarding arrangements in the borough remain effective, with strong multi-agency partnership working contributing to positive outcomes for residents.
The annual report for 2025/26, presented to the Health and Wellbeing Board, highlights that 99.7% of recorded safeguarding outcomes were fully or partially achieved, and risk was reduced or removed in the vast majority of enquiries. Furthermore, 80% of individuals reported feeling as safe as they wanted to be following a safeguarding intervention.
The report also noted a strong alignment between safeguarding efforts and the Joint Local Health and Wellbeing Strategy, particularly in areas of prevention, reducing inequalities, and strengthening community resilience. Key priorities for the coming year include improving responses to self-neglect and complex vulnerability, enhancing referral quality, and better utilising safeguarding intelligence to understand risk and inequality.
Safeguarding interventions are making a positive difference to residents' lives, with a focus on person-centred and outcome-focused practice. The report indicates that issues such as self-neglect, social isolation, poor mental health, substance use, homelessness, frailty, and dementia are recurring themes in safeguarding activity, requiring coordinated responses across various sectors.
To address these complex issues, the Safeguarding Adults Board is strengthening prevention and early intervention, improving responses to self-neglect and complex vulnerability, and enhancing referral quality. They are also embedding learning from reviews and improving the use of safeguarding data and intelligence to better understand vulnerability, risk, and inequalities, thereby supporting targeted prevention activity. Furthermore, the board aims to strengthen multi-agency and South West London partnership working, ensuring greater consistency of safeguarding arrangements and shared learning across the region. The impact of organisational change on safeguarding capacity and delivery will also be monitored.
Safeguarding intelligence is being utilised to understand risk and inequality more effectively. Safeguarding data has been mapped against deprivation data to improve this understanding and to inform future prevention activity. While a specific definition of 'safeguarding intelligence' is not provided in the report, its application in identifying and addressing vulnerability and inequality is a key focus.
The Safeguarding Adults Board is recommending that neighbourhood health planning and place-based partnership arrangements be used as a mechanism for sharing intelligence and supporting joint prevention priorities. This approach is expected to help coordinate support around residents and communities more effectively, intervening earlier to improve outcomes. The report suggests these mechanisms are intended for intelligence sharing and joint prevention, though specific details on their implementation are yet to be elaborated.
The report was presented by Fiona Martin, Independent Chair of the Richmond and Wandsworth Safeguarding Adults Board, who emphasised the effectiveness of the current safeguarding arrangements and the importance of continued collaboration. The report identifies several areas for development and ongoing assurance, which can be considered challenges or barriers. These include strengthening prevention and early intervention, improving safeguarding pathways and referral quality, enhancing responses to self-neglect, substance misuse, and complex vulnerability, embedding learning from reviews, improving the use of safeguarding data and intelligence, strengthening multi-agency partnerships, and monitoring the impact of organisational change on safeguarding capacity and delivery.
Further details on the Safeguarding Adults Board's work can be found in the Public reports pack for the Health and Wellbeing Board meeting on 17 September 2026 Public reports pack 17th Sep 2026.
