Free Safeguarding Adults Policy for Domiciliary Care

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Your registered manager name, local authority, and CQC number built in automatically.

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What does a free safeguarding policy for domiciliary care need to include?

To be usable in practice and stand up to CQC scrutiny, a safeguarding adults policy for a domiciliary care agency needs, at minimum:

• Section 42 of the Care Act 2014 referenced by name, with the agency's duty to refer explained
• All six safeguarding principles: Empowerment, Prevention, Proportionality, Protection, Partnership, Accountability
• Your named Registered Manager as designated safeguarding lead with contact details
• Your Local Authority Safeguarding Adults Team contact number and out-of-hours route
• All ten categories of abuse from the Care Act statutory guidance
• A step-by-step referral procedure staff can follow during a visit, not just in the office
• The Making Safeguarding Personal framework
• CQC Single Assessment Framework quality statements mapped (Safe: S3 Safeguarding)
• Whistleblowing and staff-allegation routes that bypass the person concerned

What does Section 42 of the Care Act 2014 actually require?

Section 42 places a legal duty on local authorities to make enquiries, or ask others including your agency to make them, when an adult with care and support needs may be experiencing, or be at risk of, abuse or neglect and cannot protect themselves because of those needs. For a domiciliary care agency the practical consequence is clear: your policy must set out how care workers recognise the signs of abuse, who they report to inside the agency the same working day, and how a concern is referred to the local authority's Safeguarding Adults Team.

You can read the full statutory text at legislation.gov.uk (Care Act 2014, Section 42). CQC assesses how well providers meet this duty under the safeguarding quality statement of its Single Assessment Framework.

Example of a personalised clause

“All suspected or actual safeguarding concerns must be reported to [your Registered Manager], the designated safeguarding lead, within the same working day and, where required, referred to [your Local Authority] Safeguarding Adults Team on [your local number] without delay.”

The bold fields are filled in automatically from your agency profile: names, numbers and escalation routes appear throughout the document, not just on the cover.

Is a generic safeguarding policy template enough for CQC?

Usually not on its own. A downloaded template that says “report concerns to your manager” or “contact the local authority” leaves the questions an inspector actually asks unanswered: who is the safeguarding lead by name, what is the local referral number, and what does a care worker do at 7pm on a Sunday? Generic wording also tends to describe residential settings rather than lone working in people's homes.

CareDocPro builds your draft around your saved agency details (accountable roles, local authority routes and your service model) so the reporting lines are real from the first draft. You still review and approve every route before use.

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Is CareDocPro's free safeguarding policy legally compliant?

CareDocPro's free safeguarding policy is drafted around Care Act 2014 requirements and CQC's Single Assessment Framework, but every provider must review it, align it with their actual practice and have it approved before use. It is a compliant starting draft, not a substitute for registered manager sign-off, and that review step is itself something CQC expects to see evidenced.