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The West Sussex Safeguarding Adults Board Strategic Plan sets out:
Version: 1
Effective from: April 2026
Review date: March 2027
West Sussex Safeguarding Adults Board is a statutory Board; a multi-agency partnership consisting of both statutory and non-statutory organisations from across the health, social care, and uniform services.
We benefit from a large membership of senior staff representing organisations in West Sussex who are responsible for the development and implementation of effective multi-agency safeguarding policies, protocols, and practices. This is with an ongoing shared commitment to safeguard adults with care and support needs from abuse and neglect.
This three-year strategy sets out our shared vision; what we are committed to achieve over the next three-year period; and how we plan to meet our objectives.
We conduct our work in line with the Care Act 2014, and specifically within the principles of effective safeguarding work, which we’ll take a look at now.
Each year our annual business plan is informed by a set of overarching strategic objectives. For the period 2025-2028, we want to ensure that we are always working towards the following desired outcomes.
We know that for our Sussex-wide agencies, consistent approaches to policy, procedure, and protocol are essential to support their work. This is why we are committed to working with our colleagues in Brighton & Hove and East Sussex, where appropriate, to develop pan Sussex approaches. This means having consistent processes and expectations, so that staff feel confident in their approach, regardless of locality. We’ll achieve this through effective pan Sussex collaboration in our Pan Sussex Policy and Procedures group.
We continue to prioritise the effective embedding of learning in direct safeguarding practice with adults, as well as at a strategic level. This means that we want to develop more clarity around who our learning resources are aimed at and develop learning resources that are fit-for-purpose, support learning progression, and encourage reflection both at a practice and organisational level.
We want to re-evaluate what it is to be ‘Making Safeguarding Personal’ in light of what we now know about adult safeguarding practice. This means that we want to champion person-centred, strengths-based, and trauma-informed practice. We’ll achieve this through improved education around what these approaches mean and sharing positive practice examples.
In a meeting of the Board in March 2026, Board members discussed and agreed the following Board priorities for 2026/2027. Each of these will be progressed with reference to our three strategic objectives outlined above.
In late 2024, we published a Safeguarding Adults Review about Tom, who, from 2016, experienced neglect, emotional and psychological abuse by his then-wife and paid carer, which worsened over time and isolated Tom from his family and friends. In 2020, Tom’s circumstances came to light, and the safeguarding process identified concerns about serious neglect, coercive control, and disguised compliance. The Board acknowledge the current lack of resources on addressing the issues of coercive control and disguised compliance through safeguarding and note that more work is needed across the partnership to develop knowledge and awareness in this area.
Through our subgroup workplans for 2026/27, we will identify gaps in provision in working with adults with care and support needs who are experiencing coercion and control. This will include research and consulting and collaborating with relevant specialist services to develop and promote learning resources to support staff, as required.
Data from the 2025/26 financial year showed us that the category of abuse with the highest increase since the previous year is financial and material abuse. A possible contributing factor for this increase is the cost-of-living crisis, since late 2021. The crisis has forced many to cut back on essentials, with low-income households most heavily impacted.
The rising cost-of-living may have intensified financial abuse, making it harder for people with care and support needs to maintain independence and autonomy. There is a potential risk that some caregivers could use the increase in costs, and concerns about financial hardship, as a tool for coercive control, to justify restricting the adult’s access to money and essentials including covering the cost for care needed.
Financial abuse rarely happens in isolation, and is frequently linked with other forms of abuse, including domestic abuse, neglect, and coercive control. By setting financial abuse as a Board priority, along with coercive control, the Board aims to develop resources and tools, in consultation and collaboration with relevant services, to support staff members who are working with those who are at risk of, or experiencing, financial exploitation.
Our Board subgroups will produce an annual work plan, which will identify workstreams to progress these Board priorities.
The subgroups will identify how they can best support the progression of these priorities, alongside the overarching strategic objectives. This will include activity to:
Board will be sighted on the progress of all objectives at the Board’s quarterly meetings and the work achieved will be included in the Board’s 2026/27 annual report.
