Safeguarding Adults and the Law

The safeguarding of vulnerable adults continues to increase in importance. Safeguarding Adults and the Law, now in its second edition, sets this complex area of work within an extensive legal framework and provides many useful pointers for practitioners and students.

The book covers, for example, Department of Health guidelines, human rights, the regulation of health and social care providers, the barring of carers from working with vulnerable adults, care standards tribunal cases, mental capacity, undue influence, assault, battery, wilful neglect, ill treatment, self-neglect, manslaughter, murder, theft, fraud, sexual offences, data protection and the sharing of information. It focuses on how these areas of law apply to vulnerable adults, and uses the large body of case law to bring the law to life. Also covered is how local authorities and the NHS are implicated in causing harm - through abuse, neglect or omission - as exemplified by the independent and public inquiries into the catastrophic events at Stafford Hospital. This fully-updated second edition comprehensively reflects recent changes to the law, and includes many new case studies. It looks forward also to the implications, for safeguarding, of the draft Care and Support Bill 2012.

This book will be an essential resource for all those working in community care, adult social work, health care and housing. Those working for local authorities, the NHS, voluntary organisations and students will find it to be essential reading.