Safeguarding statement

NHS Surrey and Sussex ICB is committed to safeguarding the welfare of children, young people and adults at risk.

Safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility. All staff must remain alert to concerns, take appropriate action, and contribute to preventing harm and protecting vulnerable people. Safeguarding adults and children is a statutory duty and a core part of our work.

Abuse or neglect may be caused by inflicting harm or by failing to prevent harm. It can occur in families, care settings, institutions, or the wider community, and may involve people known to the individual, carers or strangers.

Health practitioners are often well placed to recognise risk, identify concerns early and support individuals appropriately. Effective safeguarding protects people from harm and promotes their welfare.

All staff must ensure their practice follows statutory requirements and local safeguarding procedures.

Please ensure your Safeguarding, PREVENT and Looked After Children training is up to date.

If there is an immediate risk to a child or adult, call 999.

Organisational structure

NHS Surrey and Sussex ICB has a clear safeguarding governance structure.

• The Chief Executive holds overall accountability for ensuring the health contribution to safeguarding is delivered effectively through commissioning arrangements.
• The Chief Nursing Officer is the Executive Lead for safeguarding, providing strategic leadership and assurance across the ICB and wider system.
• The ICB employs Designated Professionals for children, adults, looked after children and child death review. These statutory roles support delivery of the safeguarding agenda across Surrey and Sussex.

Assurance

As a commissioner of health services, the ICB ensures that all commissioned providers have robust safeguarding arrangements in place and deliver safe, high‑quality care.

The NHS England Safeguarding Accountability and Assurance Framework sets out the expectations for strong safeguarding leadership, clear governance, and active engagement in local safeguarding arrangements. 

NHS Integrated Care Boards (ICB) have a statutory responsibility to make sure that the organisations they commission services from have arrangements in place to effectively safeguard children and adults at risk of abuse and neglect.

NHS Surrey and Sussex ICB must:

• have a clear line of accountability for safeguarding within the ICB.
• ensure the Chief Executive has ultimate accountability for ensuring that the health contribution to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and adults is discharged effectively across the whole health economy through commissioning arrangements.
• ensure the Chief Nursing Officer has executive lead for safeguarding and looked after children and has responsibility for providing leadership and gaining assurance in relation to safeguarding issues within the ICB and across the system.
• employ the expertise of Designated Professionals for both children, adults, looked after children and child death review through collaborative arrangements. These roles are an integral part of the ICB activity and support the delivery of the safeguarding adults, children’s, Looked after children and child death review agenda.
• ensure that all organisations commissioned or contracted to provide services will in the discharge of their functions, have regard to the requirements contained within statutory guidance Working Together to Safeguard Children 2018 the Care Act 2014 as well as Policy and Guidance set out by the Safeguarding Adults Boards and Safeguarding Children Partnerships.

The following measures ensure that safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and adults at risk of abuse or neglect are given priority and are discharged effectively across the whole local health community through commissioning arrangements:

• Systems to train staff to the appropriate level to recognise and report safeguarding issues.
• A clear line of accountability for safeguarding; reflected in our governance arrangements.
• Systems in place to ensure that providers of services are held to account through regular review of safeguarding arrangements through quality scrutiny processes.
• Arrangements to work with local authorities and other partners through our Local Safeguarding Children Partnerships, Local Safeguarding Adults Boards and Health and Wellbeing Boards.
• Arrangements to share information between service providers, agencies and commissioners.
• A clear statement of ICB/ICS responsibilities for staff and ensuring that safeguarding children and adults strategies and associated policies are in place, including safe recruitment of staff, a whistle-blowing policy and safeguarding training and supervision policies which ensure staff exercise vigilance to mitigate against the risk that people using ICB services might be suffering from abuse.
• The safeguarding team has a Designated doctor and nurses who are responsible for safeguarding children, adults and looked after children, Nurses for Child Death Review, Designated GP for Safeguarding Adults and Children, Named GP for Safeguarding Children, and Safeguarding Business support.

We closely monitor how effective our safeguarding arrangements for children and adults at risk, through governance and quality assurance processes. In turn, NHS England oversees those processes to make sure all ICBs are meeting their safeguarding responsibilities.