Purpose – Serious Case Reviews (SCRs, now Safeguarding Adults Reviews (SARs)) may be held at local level inEngland when a vulnerable adult dies or is harmed, and abuse or neglect is suspected, and there is cause forconcern about multi-agency safeguarding practice. There has been no analysis of SCRs focussing on pressure ulcers. The purpose of this paper is to present findings from a documentary analysis of SCRs/SARs to investigate what recommendations are made about pressure ulcer prevention and treatment in a care home setting in the context of safeguarding. This analysis is presented in cognisance of the prevalence and risks of pressure ulcers among care home residents; and debates about the interface of care quality and safeguarding systems.Design/methodology/approach – Identification of SCRs and SARs from England where the person whodied or who was harmed had a pressure ulcer or its synonym. Narrative and textual analysis of documentssummarising the reports was used to explore the Reviews’ observations and recommendations. The mainthemes were identified.Findings – The authors located 18 relevant SCRs and 1 SAR covering pressure ulcer care in a care homesetting. Most of these inquiries into practice, service communications and the events leading up to the deathor harm of care home residents with pressure ulcers observed that there were failings in the care home, butalso in the wider health and care systems. Overall, the reports reveal specific failings in multi-agencycommunication and in quality of care. Pressure ulcers featured in several SCRs, but it is problems andinadequacies with care and treatment that moved them to the safeguarding arena. The value of examiningpressure ulcers as a key line of inquiry is that they are “visible” in the system, with consensus about what theyare, how to measure them and what constitutes optimal care and treatment. In the new Care Act 2014context they may continue to feature in safeguarding enquiries and investigations as they may be possiblesymptoms of system failures.Research limitations/implications – Reviews vary in content, structure and accessibility making it hard tocompare their approach, findings and recommendations. There are risks in drawing too many conclusionsfrom the corpus of Reviews since these are not published in full and contexts have subsequently changed.However, this is the first analysis of these documents to take pressure ulcers as the focus and it offersvaluable insights into care home practices amid other systems and professional activity.Practical implications – This analysis highlights that it is not inevitably poor quality care in a care home thatgives rise to pressure ulcers among residents. Several SCRs note problems in wider communications withhealthcare providers and their engagement. Nonetheless, poor care quality and negligence were reported insome cases. Various policies have commented on the potential overlap between the raising of concernsabout poor quality care and about safeguarding. These were highlighted prior to the Care Act 2014 althoughcurrent policy views problems with pressure ulcers more as care quality and clinical concerns.Social implications – The value of this documentary analysis is that it rests on real case examples andscrutiny at local level. Future research could consider the findings of SARs, similar documents from the rest ofthe UK, and international perspectives.Originality/value – The value of having a set of documents about adult safeguarding is that they lendthemselves to analysis and comparison. This first analysis to focus on pressure ulcers addresses widerconsiderations related to safeguarding policy and practice
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