The purpose of this paper is to produce an extensive review of safeguarding adult reviews (SARs) pertaining to individuals with acquired brain injury (ABI) since 2014. This review examines the lessons learned and recommendations arising from these reviews as they relate to health and social care practice in England.
The review presented and discussed findings across multiple reviews and then applied narrative analysis to synthesise the findings and recommendations from the SARs reviews.
The authors identified 22 SARs relating to people with ABI that matched the inclusion criteria. Four main themes were identified: (1) ABI-responsive safeguarding policies and legal frameworks, (2) training and awareness of ABI, (3) integrated multi-agency pathways for complex ABI care and discharge and (4) organisational contexts shaping ABI support that led to poor safeguarding practices.
The review highlights significant gaps in health and social care practice, education and training in England in relation to ABI.
The paper offers recommendations for current health and social care practice and emphasises the need for substantial improvements in both pre-qualification and post-qualification training and supervision of practitioners.
This paper builds on a previous review of SARs pertaining to adults with ABI, but it has provided a systematic approach to extend the previous review.
