About NHS England Safeguarding

NHS England is responsible for ensuring that the health commissioning system is working to safeguarding and promote the welfare of its citizens.

What is ‘safeguarding’ and why is it important to us?

Safeguarding means protecting a citizen’s health, wellbeing, and human rights; enabling them to live free from harm, abuse, and neglect. It is an integral part of providing high-quality health care.  Safeguarding children, young people and adults is a collective responsibility.

Those most in need of protection include:

• Children and young people
• Adults at risk, such as those receiving care in their own home, people with physical, sensory and mental impairments, and those with learning disabilities.

All staff, whether they work in a hospital, a care home, in general practice, or in providing community care, and whether they are employed by a public sector, private, or not-for-profit organisation, have a responsibility to safeguard children and adults at risk of abuse or neglect in the NHS.

Here is the link to the national NHS England safeguarding webpages, policies, and further information.

NHS England Regional Safeguarding Team

What we do:

Each NHS England region must have a regional safeguarding lead to ensure regional collaboration and assurance and in the South West we have a diverse skill set, that helps us in our key roles.

Our function is to support the delivery of the national safeguarding programme, providing leadership and support to our safeguarding partners across the South West, as well as supporting the specialist safeguarding roles within our own commissioned services.

Who we are:

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Sue Doheny  Regional Chief Nurse	Jill Crook Director of Nursing Professional and System Development	Rosie Luce         Assistant Director of  Nursing (Safeguarding) Regional Safeguarding Lead (RSL)
Nick Rudling           Head of Safeguarding Transformation	Roslynn Azzam Liberty Protection Safeguards Clinical Lead	Joanne May Safeguarding Officer

How to get in touch:

You can email our team address: england.swsafeguarding@nhs.net

We continue to work remotely due to the pandemic and associated restrictions therefore email is the best way to contact us.

Here are some of our regional documents:

• NHS England and NHS Improvement South West Safeguarding Annual Report 2020-2021
• NHS England – South West Safeguarding Annual Report 2021-2022
• NHS England – South West Safeguarding Annual Report 2022 23
• NHS England – South West Modern Slavery Incident Response Framework

South West Regional Serious Violence and Contextualised Safeguarding Information Governance Framework 2021

Aim of the framework 

To provide the mechanism for establishing effective data sharing to support service led initiatives within the South West region and to be used, where beneficial, for any other data sharing across wider public services that include relevant data.

To simplify the establishment of data sharing arrangements across the South West region, by providing a common, consistent approach and template documentation to ensure relevant services work together to share data and knowledge and allow them to target interventions to prevent and tackle violence.

• South West Regional Serious Violence and Contextualised Safeguarding Information Governance Framework

The NHS England Safeguarding Training Framework aims to provide information on mandatory safeguarding training requirements, within the South West Region. 

• South West Safeguarding Training Framework