Safeguarding

Safeguarding is a key priority for Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust (BHT); this is reflected in our mission to achieve safe and compassionate care every time and in our organisation’s values.

Our aim is to provide safe, high quality care to everybody who uses our services and to ensure that we have in place effective systems and processes to help keep children and adults safe from abuse and neglect. This is because we believe that this is right thing to do, not simply because we have legislative duties to do so.   

We say “People are at the heart of everything we do” which means that we truly believe that:

• Safeguarding means listening to all our people and working in partnership.
• It is the right of every human being to live a life free from abuse and neglect.
• Safeguarding is everybody’s business.

The above stated beliefs are supported by the arrangements we have put in place as follows:

• The Trust’s Chief Executive accepts responsibility on behalf of the organisation for safeguarding and is supported by the Chief Nurse who is the executive lead for safeguarding.
• The Trust has named professionals who provide training and support to our staff and who can also provide the right assurance or raise concerns to the Chief Executive or Chief Nurse where appropriate.
• We have in place the right systems and processes to protect all who use our services from improper treatment or abuse. These systems and processes enable our staff to care for people properly and to report allegations of abuse as soon as they become aware of them, so that they can be investigated speedily and appropriately.
• We have in place robust governance arrangements to ensure and monitor that our organisation is fulfilling its safeguarding responsibilities and is working effectively to safeguard patients in all the care we provide.
• We help prevent unsuitable people from working with our patients, especially those who may be particularly vulnerable. We do this by meeting statutory requirements and ensuring that all staff employed in our Trust undergo the right level of checks with the national Disclosure and Barring Service before starting working with us.
• All of the Trust’s Safeguarding policies are up to date, robust and are reviewed on a regular basis.
• The Trust ensures that all of our staff receive safeguarding training at the right level for their roles. Training compliance is robustly monitored via our internal Safeguarding Committee and Quality and Governance committees. We ensure that safeguarding competencies expected of staff are in line with all national guidance documents and evidence. A process for monitoring and reviewing the quality of our training is in place.
• The Trust has a process in place for following up children who are not brought to appointments so that we can ensure that their care and their health are not affected in any way.  
• The Trust has implemented and is compliant with the requirements of the national Child Protection Information- Sharing system which helps us to quickly identify those children and families where there are known safeguarding concerns.
• Our staff are clear about their safeguarding responsibilities and have sufficient time and receive the relevant support and training to undertake their roles.
• We work in partnership with all other local bodies and individual agencies so that together we can safeguard and support our local population.