How is safeguarding adults performed with people who lack mental capacity due to dementia?

Decisions made to safeguard adults suffering, or at risk of, abuse or neglect can be life changing: they may determine where a person lives, how their care is provided, or what contact they have with others. If the person has mental capacity, these decisions are ultimately their own; however, in 2013/14, 28% of individuals involved in safeguarding procedures lacked capacity and worryingly, in a further 29% of cases the individual’s capacity was unknown (Health and Social Care Information Centre, 2014).

This poster introduces the researcher’s current doctoral study, a critical, micro-ethnographic inquiry into how Safeguarding Adults practitioners coordinate cases where, due to the impact of dementia, the person does not have mental capacity to make safeguarding decisions for themself. Throughout 2016, the researcher will be attached to a Local Authority Safeguarding Adults Team, employing a mobilities approach to observe and interview practitioners as they manage cases of abuse and neglect of persons who lack capacity. In collecting data, particular focus will be given to how practitioners experience and resolve the tensions between the empowering ethos of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and the protectionist agenda of safeguarding adults, in order to reach decisions in the person’s best interests.