POLICY Despite the Care Acts good intentions, Gary FitzGerald says it will do little to help adults at risk of abuse T All change, no change Act brings no new powers to intervene or protect adults at risk of, or experiencing, abuse. Yes, there will be corporate accountability for care and health providers who abuse, and the charge of wilful ill-treatment or neglect will be extended beyond the Mental Capacity Act 2005 to include those who deliver care and health services to people who have capacity (under the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill). But, for most victims who live at home and are abused by family or friends it is no change. The Department of Health is keen to argue that the situation in adult safeguarding is not business as usual, but it is difficult to understand how it justifies this assertion. Under the No Secrets guidance, adult safeguarding was a policy directive that had no legal powers of its own. To intervene and protect required the use of other legislation such as the NHS and Community Care Act 1990, the Mental Capacity Act, the Mental Health Act 1983, and the Human Rights Act 1998. This will continue to be the case after the Care Act is implemented. In essence, this means that it is misleading of the government to claim that it has put adult safeguarding on a statutory basis. It would be more It is misleading of the government to claim that it has put adult safeguarding on a statutory basis accurate to say that it has put adult safeguarding boards on a statutory footing, and left nearly everything else unchanged. It is worth noting that, in general, elder abuse is committed by family or friends in peoples own homes, not within institutions. And yet most English legislative intervention is targeted towards institutional or paid care provision. The reason is simple. Governments might be willing to introduce legislation that intervenes within a narrow band of adult family abuse, such as domestic violence, but they are resistant to extending it to other forms of family abuse. This, they consider, is interference by the nanny state. This was starkly apparent in the parliamentary debate on the need for legislation to gain access to households where someone may have been being abused, but entry was being denied by a third party often a family member. Despite the advice to the contrary, the government backed by the bodies representing adults social services directors and chief police officers insisted current legal powers were sufficient. Part of the argument implied that social workers could not be trusted to wield this power of access, although Scottish colleagues have done so effectively since 2007. The assurance given was that guidance would be produced to clarify how the current law could be used in such situations. The guidance was produced by the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) late last year and, by default, it confirms that the law is indeed insufficient. The reality is that access can only be gained in some situations by intervention of the High Court exercising inherent jurisdiction, which is the courts common law power to hear a range of cases involving possible injustice that are not covered by specific legislation. This is not good enough, primarily because local authorities have been reluctant to approach the High Court in such situations, fearing time and cost implications. Such an approach has not been made integral to adult safeguarding considerations and neither the SCIE guidance nor the government has done enough to inspire confidence that it will be so in the future. In effect, the issue has been sidelined. Research by Action on Elder Abuse suggested that about 25 people were he Care Act is intended to be the beginning of a transformation in the approach adopted towards social care in England. For many, 1 April marks a long-overdue overhaul of a system that has been creaking at the edges for too long. It is a point that has not been lost on the government, which describes the Act as representing the most significant reform of care and support in more than 60 years, putting people and their carers in control of their care and support. For the first time, the Act will put a limit on the amount anyone will have to pay towards the costs of their care. But there is another side to it. The government has also described it as a way to prevent a reoccurrence of the abuse that happened at the mid-Staffordshire NHS Trust and was exposed in the Francis report two years ago, as well as a means to crack down on those who deliver bad care. Well, heres something that really ought to be on social works radar. The Care The Care Act brings no new powers to intervene or protect adults at risk of, or experiencing, abuse abused in their own homes in the 12 months to February 2014 without successful intervention by adult safeguarding staff. Social workers were denied entry by a third party and no amount of persuasion overcame that resistance. Those 25 people were left to fend for themselves or suffer in silence because there were no legal means to reach them. Contrary to the assertions made by the care minister to parliament, the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, the Mental Capacity Act and the Mental Health Act are insufficient to gain entry when there is no evidence that the victim lacks capacity or has mental health difficulties, and where there is no evidence of a crime. So its down to applications to the courts for intervention under inherent jurisdiction. Thats the implication from the parliamentary debate and the SCIE guidance, and social workers should consider this a necessity under their duty of care to the victim. Gary FitzGerald is chief executive of Action on Elder Abuse "