BNSSG Safeguarding Team & Training (DRAFT)

BNSSG ICB All Age Safeguarding Team

The BNSSG safeguarding team provide support and training for primary care colleagues. They arrange regular meetings with Link GPs, provide training updates and webinars, host safeguarding supervision sessions and participate in a variety of policy groups and committees.

They are happy to give advice on safeguarding matters to clinicians, requests to be sent via the team admin box. Please remember that they cannot offer urgent advice but are happy to talk through complex issues. Any advice given, is provided to assist you in your decision making and you may still wish to liaise with your indemnifying organisation, or seek further advice from, for example, your data protection officer.

Please email bnssg.safeguardingadmin@nhs.net to get in touch with us.

Head of Safeguarding (All Age): Faye Kamara

Named GP for Safeguarding (All Age): Dr Vicky Donkin (Tues + Weds)

Named GP for Safeguarding (All Age): Dr Marie McVeigh (Weds + Fri)

Designated Professional for Safeguarding Adults: Alex Morgan

Designated Nurse for Safeguarding Children: Toyah Carty-Moore

Designated Nurse for Safeguarding Children in Care and Care Leavers: Nicola Eschbaecher

Deputy Designated Nurse for Safeguarding Children in Care and Care Leavers: Gemma Shannon

Deputy Designated Nurses for Safeguarding (All Age):

• Harjit McLean (Bristol)
• Lucy Austin (North Somerset)
• Louise Field (South Gloucestershire)

Named Professionals for Primary Care:

• Kirsten Bowes
• Louise Ledgerwood-Care

Designated Doctor for Safeguarding Children Bristol and South Gloucestershire: TBC

Designated Doctor for Safeguarding Children North Somerset: TBC

Designated Doctor for Safeguarding Children in Care and Care Leavers: Dr Saraswati Hosdurga

MCA and DoLS Lead: Johnson Koikkara

Community DoLS Assessors: Sarah Dunn, Selena Stennett

Safeguarding training

Training requirements for primary care staff – new RCGP standards

The RCGP expect all staff working in GP setting to comply with their new all-age safeguarding training standards, and document this in the way they have specified. This is a competency-based approach, with case-based reflective practice and learning logged.

1. All staff must access safeguarding training and supervision relevant to their role, at the correct level 1/2/3 and covering adult/children/all-age knowledge + skills.
2. All staff to be supported to achieve the expected standards for their role and have this evidence available for inspection at CQC/appraisal/revalidation.
3. All staff must be supported to engage with CPD/training in an ‘adult-learning approach’, identifying learning needs then meeting those on an individualised basis - there is no one-size-fits-all training package!

The RCN expect nurses to comply with their own safeguarding training standards, as per the intercollegiate documents for children and adults. This is a time-based approach, with training hours logged.

Therefore; primary care staff should follow the RCGP competence-based reflective learning expectations on an annual basis, and those who need to count the hours spent should also include that number in their reflective log entry. This ensures that over the course of 3/5 years, staff will have covered both the whole RCGP standards (curriculum) and will also have logged more than enough hours to meet the RCN / ICD expectations as well.

COPY of email sent to practice managers and Link GPs summarising changes: (upload later)

RCGP  ‘Safeguarding Hub’: https://elearning.rcgp.org.uk/course/view.php?id=819&gad_source=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIha3-7df3igMV8YtQBh18UCf-EAAYASAAEgLEovD_BwE

Here you can access the RCGP safeguarding standards, the RCGP Level 3 e-learning, the RCGP reflection templates and the RCGP safeguarding toolkit. 

With your nhs.net address, you can also register for free access to e-Learning for Health safeguarding modules for your ‘online learning’ training component:

• e-learning for health Adult Safeguarding Modules – level 1-4
• e-learning for health Children’s Safeguarding Modules – level 1-3

Training certificates

Prior to October 2024, it was necessary to log and evidence the number of hours of safeguarding CPD as per RCGP / appraisal requirements. For this reason, certificates were issued for training attendance.

In October 2024, the RCGP changed its training requirements and published the new Safeguarding Standards.

There is no longer any requirement to log or evidence the number of hours of CPD training, rather the new requirement is to log a reflective piece using the new RCGP template.

As no hours-log is required, we are no longer issuing attendance certificates for ICB training events, as this is a huge and now unnecessary administrative burden.

Please use the training slides PDF and confirmation email from the ICB team as evidence of your attendance at training if required.

BNSSG ICB Primary Care Safeguarding Training Programme

• Safeguarding Training Offer 2025

For further information about safeguarding training please see our ICB webpage: Safeguarding information - NHS BNSSG ICB

Safeguarding supervision

Supervision leads to improving decision-making, accountability, and supporting professional development among practitioners. 

It also provides an opportunity for self-reflection, peer support and pastoral care.

• 1:1 supervision – Case based discussion with a colleague, manager or safeguarding lead within your practice.
• Group supervision – Case based discussion with multi-disciplinary teams within your practice (e.g. at practice meetings).

Please consider and discuss with your line manager / Link GP: What is the safeguarding supervision structure at your surgery? Do you know who to talk to for support?

Local Authority Training ‘multi-agency, interactive training’

All 3 local authorities in Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire provide a variety of training courses for safeguarding adults and children. Some courses are virtual, and some are inter-agency and face-to-face.

All these courses are available to NHS primary care staff free of charge and can form part of your mandatory CPD hours for safeguarding training.

Please note that the traditional mandatory children’s safeguarding course is now called advanced child protection training, whereas the adult safeguarding training is divided into shorter topic-specific courses. There is no single all-encompassing adult course.

Adults

• Bristol: Keeping Bristol Safe Partnership Training
• North Somerset: North Somerset Adult Safeguarding Board – Learning and Development 
• South Gloucestershire: South Gloucestershire Council Learning and Development Services

Children

Use search term: “advanced child protection”

• Bristol: Welcome to the Keeping Bristol Safe Partnership Training 
• North Somerset: Children’s Safeguarding Partnership – Learning and Development
• South Gloucestershire: South Gloucestershire Council Learning and Development Services

Resources

COPIES OF PREVIOUS SLIDES IN PDF FORMAT (upload later)

Efforts are made to ensure the accuracy and agreement of these guidelines, including any content uploaded, referred to or linked to from the system. However, BNSSG ICB cannot guarantee this. This guidance does not override the individual responsibility of healthcare professionals to make decisions appropriate to the circumstances of the individual patient, in consultation with the patient and/or guardian or carer, in accordance with the mental capacity act, and informed by the summary of product characteristics of any drugs they are considering. Practitioners are required to perform their duties in accordance with the law and their regulators and nothing in this guidance should be interpreted in a way that would be inconsistent with compliance with those duties.

Information provided through Remedy is continually updated so please be aware any printed copies may quickly become out of date.