Practice guidance

This section provides essential guidance developed specifically for professionals working across the West of Berkshire. It is designed to support practitioners in achieving best practice in Adult Safeguarding. The guidance reflects current legislation, local procedures, and recognised standards, helping ensure that adults at risk are protected with dignity, respect, and professionalism.

Whether you're new to safeguarding or looking to refresh your knowledge, these resources aim to promote consistent, informed, and confident practice across all services.

Legislation

Click the title to navigate to the related page for more details:

• Mental Capacity Act and DoLS
• Prevent
• Whistleblowing
• assisted dying
• Making Safeguarding Personal

Toolkits

Visit the before raising a safeguarding concern page for more details. 

Documents:

• Pathways for Multi-Agency Planning [235KB]
• Multi-Agency Meeting/Discussion Guidance [229KB]
• Raising a Safeguarding Concern [230KB]
• Out of Area Reviews Best Practice Guide [1MB]
• Missing People Multi-Agency Response Guidance [399KB]
• Best Practice Guide for Decision-making: Section 42 Safeguarding Adults Enquiries [172KB]
• Risk Reduction Guidance: People who Live Alone or have Restricted Ability to Respond [148KB]  - developed by Reading Adult Social Care, this guidance supports practitioners in assessing and managing risks for people who live alone or have limited ability to respond to emergencies - while created for use in Reading, it may also be helpful to health and social care partners in West Berkshire

Areas of risk

Click the title to navigate to the related page for more details:

• fire risk awareness
• financial exploitation
• care governance
• modern slavery in care
• pressure care and postural management
• self-neglect and hoarding
• Fabricated and Induced Illness in Adults [212KB]
• sexual exploitation
• carers
• domestic abuse
• homelessness

Learning

Visit the case studies page for more details.

Requests for advice or further consultation

Health and Social Care Practitioners should be flexible in their approach when seeking and providing advice in regards to individuals who may not meet the criteria for their services.

Following the publication of the  Safeguarding Adult Review Bree [399KB]  - the Berkshire Healthcare Learning Disability Service (Adults) wants to ensure that practitioners are aware that they can request clinical advice or a consultation from the Learning Disability Service provided by Berkshire Health Foundation Trust (BHFT) even in the absence of a diagnosed Learning Disability.

The specialist health services provided by the BHFT Learning Disability service supports adults with a diagnosed learning disability, who live in Berkshire, and with a GP in Berkshire. Sometimes people that the service has supported in the past are subsequently found not to have a learning disability (as defined by DHSC 2001) and therefore the service would not accept new referrals for the person. However, in these circumstances, where someone has been supported by the learning disability service in the past, the service is willing to consider requests for advice and can review if clinical advice, or an opportunity for further consultation, is possible to support professionals working with an individual.

Where BHFT have not been directly involved in the care of an individual before, their ability to provide advice is likely to be more limited to general advice or signposting to resources that may be useful.

To request consideration for advice, or to ask for consideration of a consultation meeting, please email learning.disability@berkshire.nhs.uk with the details of the individual and a brief description of the circumstances / reason for the advice being sought.

Advice and consultations depend on the availability of staff with the right experience. The service will try to reply as soon as possible, but service cannot give urgent responses and does not give advice outside of normal office hours.