Many areas have established Multi Agency Safeguarding Hubs (MASHs) to mitigate the risk of anyone slipping through the safeguarding net, and they and others have requested guidance on best practice.
The review found MASHs support professionals to ‘join the dots’ and understand threats so they can take action to prevent them.
A finding of many serious case reviews has been poor information-sharing between agencies. The ability to share information in a timely and effective manner to facilitate joint decision-making is key to Safeguarding Adult Boards meeting their objectives.
MASHs are structures designed to facilitate information-sharing and decision-making on a multi-agency basis often, though not always, through co-locating staff from the local authority, health agencies and the police.