Important Updates to the Safeguarding Adults Portal

A letter from Lorrayne Barrett, Director of Social Work, Quality and Practice- and Principal Social Worker Norfolk County Council.

Dear All,

We all have a recognised safeguarding responsibility to collectively protect people from harm, abuse and neglect and we have made changes to make it easier to make raise a safeguarding concern though the portal.

As you are aware we have a recognised safeguarding reporting process (see Raising a concern | Norfolk Safeguarding Adults Board) which provides the standards / expectations on raising a safeguarding concern to the local authority , and NSAB also promotes the use of their concise concerns framework, which covers some of the most commonly reported issues (falls, medication errors, incidents between adults with care and support needs and pressure ulcers).

In addition to this, the safeguarding professional portal form is there to act as a guide to help those who are reporting a safeguarding concern to consider all the key points and provide the right information to enable the right action to be taken quickly. Using these tools / guidance helps our whole safeguarding system to work more effectively, by understanding what needs to be reported as a concern through the safeguarding adult’s pathway and what does not (e.g. quality or safety issue unconnected to abuse or neglect).

In the Summer 2025 through the Norfolk Safeguarding Adults Board (NSAB) we received feedback that several partner agencies were experiencing performance issues with the Safeguarding Professional Portal (such as the system dropping out and difficulties with navigation around the portal).

At this time, we also received feedback from those who were using the Portal; there were too many mandatory fields, too many questions and some of these were felt to be irrelevant and/or asking for duplicate information.

I’m pleased to advise that since this time we have now

• Fixed the issues where the performance of portal was unreliable users could find themselves ‘thrown out’ of a form due to an auto-save issue – we applied a fix to this in August 2025 and have had no further reported issues since then.
• Redesigned the form and engaged with over 30 people from a range of sectors (some of whom provided the initial feedback) to test the professional portal form to make it easier for different agencies to complete

As a result:

• We’ve almost halved the number of questions (from 90 to 40) whilst ensuring we’ve captured enough information
• Where the language in the portal was unclear, we made it simpler and more consistent
• Where there were duplicate questions, we’ve removed them

We also understand the link between quality and safeguarding which is fundamentality important. As part of the ongoing journey to improve quality in Norfolk, we are also working with providers to develop the Quality Operating Model and future delivery of support in Norfolk. This is being led by Louise Brosnan and providers have been contacted to take part in sessions that have been arranged for the 28th of April, 28th May and for w/c 29th June. This will include how we ensure quality concerns are addressed and supported with Norfolk, with the support from key partners, such as us, the CQC, Integrated Care Board (NHS) and Primary Care. Please contact caitlin.moll@norfolkcareassociation.org.uk for further details.

We are keen to continue to work collaboratively to together to improve and strengthen safeguarding practices and reporting across Norfolk and I do hope that you find this a welcome improvement to how safeguarding is reported.

With regards,

Lorrayne Barrett

Director of Social Work, Quality and Practice- and Principal Social Worker

Norfolk County Council