Debate contribution: Adult Protection Bill: Second Stage

Debate contribution by Mr Paul Frew on 30 June 2025.

MLA

Mr Paul Frew

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

30 June 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Executive Committee Business

Heading

Adult Protection Bill: Second Stage

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5043559

Read the official Assembly record

Text

As all my colleagues have, I support the Bill. We have been waiting a long time for it. Mahatma Gandhi said:

"The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members."

Eddie Lynch used that quote in his report on his investigation into Dunmurry Manor care home.

I am interested, simply because I have represented constituents who lived in Muckamore Abbey. I have also represented constituents who worked in Muckamore Abbey and were bullied into keeping quiet. There are major issues with how our organisations are set up that we really need to get to grips with. Does the Bill do that? Who knows? I suspect that it will take the test of scrutiny to see whether it takes a positive step forward in that, but we need something. We need to put in place something to restore the trust that our people — family members, patients, the vulnerable and society itself — have lost. That loss of trust is not just in the health and social care trusts and home-care providers — nursing homes or old people's homes, as we called them back in the day — but it impacts on the Department of Health. The Department of Health has also lost the public's trust. The Department must do something to restore people's confidence. That brings me to one of my points. One of the main definitions in the Bill is of an "adult at risk". "A" is an adult at risk if:

"(a) A is unable to protect A's own well-being or property; (b) the conduct of another person is causing (or is likely to cause) A to be harmed".

What about an organisation? If you remove the words "another person" from that, where is the organisation? Where is an organisation's responsibility to ensure that it does not cause harm to A, who is the adult at risk? Given that the Bill specifies:

"A's living conditions and other socio-economic factors affecting A",

it is actually built in. It is about the conditions under which the person has to live. There are massive issues with adults at risk and the fine definitions of who the Bill does and does not cover. For me, it is about trust in the Department of Health. As Nuala McAllister and another colleague said, in some cases, the same people who were in post when the scandals happened ended up influencing, investigating or even being in a position of responsibility in the trust or the Department of Health when those scandals were being investigated. It has been remarked to me that, in the Department of Health and the trusts, people sometimes fail upwards. We need to take cognisance of that when we look at the words in the Bill. Part 2, which is on the establishment of a board, alarms me:

"30.—(1) The Department must establish in accordance with this section a Board to be known as the Adult Protection Board for Northern Ireland ... (2) The Board must include— (a) a Chair".

Appointed by whom? The Department. The board must include:

"(b) such representative or representatives of the persons or bodies specified in subsection (3) as may be prescribed, and (c) at least 2 but not more than 4 other persons (who are not representatives of the persons or bodies specified in subsection (3) or of any other person or body exercising functions or engaged in activities relating to the protection of adults at risk) appointed by the Department."

The bodies are referred to in subsection (3). They are:

"(a) the Regional Agency for Public Health and Social Well-being; (b) the Northern Ireland Social Care Council; (c) the Patient and Client Council; (d) HSC trusts; (e) the Chief Constable; (f) such other persons exercising functions or engaged in activities relating to the protection of adults at risk as may be prescribed."

There is no mention whatsoever of the Public Services Ombudsman, 50% of whose workload is dealing with health-related complaints. I wonder whether the Minister would clarify that. Subject to the approval of the Department:

"the Board may also include representatives of such other persons or bodies exercising functions or engaged in activities relating to the protection of adults at risk as the members of the Board consider should be represented on it."

Maybe that encapsulates the concern that I have about other bodies. You can see an organisational pyramid in which staff and employees bounce from one trust, council or board to another, from the Department to the trusts or from the trusts to the Department. You must then ask yourself, "Is it truly independent?". Clause 33 is titled, "Directions to the Board", and it really alarms me. What is independence? I will read from the Bill:

"(1) The Department may give directions of a general or specific nature to the Board as to the exercise by the Board of any of its functions. (2) Before giving any directions to the Board, the Department must consult the Board. (3) Where the Department is of the opinion that because of the urgency of the matter it is necessary to give directions without consulting the Board— (a) subsection (2) does not apply, but (b) the Department must as soon as reasonably practicable give notice to the Board of the grounds on which the Department formed that opinion. (4) The Board must comply with any directions given to it under subsection (1)."

What was subsection 1? It states:

"The Department may give directions of a general or specific nature to the Board as to the exercise by the Board of any of its functions."

Surely that flies in the face of independence. I will read clause 33(5):

"Any directions given to the Board by the Department under subsection (1) may be varied or revoked by any subsequent directions so given."

Where is the independence of the board? Not only does the Department appoint the board's chair and members, but it can:

"give directions of a general or specific nature to the Board as to the exercise by the Board of any of its functions."

That alarms me. I ask the Minister to address those concerns, if not today then certainly during Committee Stage. There are massive issues with the Bill. We know that it is late, and some Members have said that there are reasons for that. I will not get into that political argument. They have every right to make those comments. The Bill was meant to come before we had lockdown philosophy. I ask the Minister to look at the Bill under the guise of seeing what it would mean for people whom I deem to be adults at risk, were we to incur another lockdown in Northern Ireland. To me, an adult at risk is someone who is not only vulnerable but isolated. We could argue that every person who lived in a care home or a hospital during the implementation of lockdown philosophy was isolated. No family members were able to visit them. They met through a pane of glass. The Minister will know of Martina Ferguson from the organisation that fights for better rights for bereaved families over COVID. Martina Ferguson and others like her need to have input into the Bill about what it would mean for them, were the legislation to be implemented in the heat of another lockdown. What would the clauses become? How could a social worker enter premises, if we were in a lockdown situation? I know that you can enter premises to administer care and medical attention, but if a social worker goes in to investigate something or assess and interview the adult at risk, is that delivering care and medical attention? We have to get clarification about what the Bill means. Every clause needs to be run through the sieve of lockdown philosophy to see how it would stand up in that scenario. I hope that we never have a scenario in which we are locked down again, but you can understand the concerns that families have about the situation in which the Bill's provisions were in place and some clauses were neutered or put aside because of a lockdown philosophy. Furthermore, does the Bill include do not resuscitate orders or the use of some medicines in end-of-life care? Does it include the situation where a person administers to adults at risk medicine that could do harm? Does it include when a person puts down a do not resuscitate order without family engagement or knowledge, as sometimes happens? Some families have come in and seen, at the top of the bed, a sign saying, "Do Not Resuscitate", without their having been consulted; they should have been consulted, but they were not. Can that be investigated? All those things have to have an impact. Clause 6, which deals with interviews, states:

"A social worker, and any person accompanying the social worker, may interview, in private, any adult found in premises being visited under section 5."

What about a close family member of that adult at risk? What about the father? What about the mother? What about the carer? What about the sister? What about the brother? Are they going to be consulted? Can they be consulted? Can they be interviewed by the social worker? Social workers are having to do all the heavy lifting in the Bill. With social workers having such a pressurised work environment, I worry about how they will ever have the capacity and support to deliver the functions of the Bill appropriately. The Bill has to include some sort of support mechanism, even an education facility, to ensure that social workers know their roles, their rights and their powers, especially when there are organisations, such as care homes or trusts, that would obstruct them. That is very important. Minister, those are just some of the things that I have come across in reading the Bill — at very short notice, I must say. I welcome the fact that we have the Bill before us, and I wish the Committee all the very best in its deliberations on and scrutiny of it. I think that it was Alan Chambers who said that no more blind eyes should be turned in our healthcare settings. I agree 100% with him on that. It remains to be seen whether the Bill will actually change the culture in our health settings. A tariff will be placed on healthcare employees who obstruct an investigation. The Bill states:

"A person guilty of an offence under this section is liable, on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 3 months (or to both)."

The Bill defines obstruction:

"A person commits an offence if, without reasonable excuse, that person prevents or obstructs any other person from doing anything which the other person is authorised or entitled to do by virtue of— (a) an assessment order, (b) a removal order, (c) a banning order, (d) a temporary banning order, (e) a warrant for entry, or (f) any provision of this Part."

It goes on to say:

"A refusal to allow a social worker, or any person accompanying a social worker, to carry out a visit which is not authorised by a warrant for entry does not constitute an offence under this section."

That is a tariff. The Bill gives us glimpses of an individual duty of candour, without actually naming it. This is the opportunity for you, Minister, to come forward with legislation that provides for that duty of candour. An organisational duty of candour just will not cut it; there should be an individual duty of candour. The Bill states:

"A person guilty of an offence under this section is liable, on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 3 months".

Minister, if the guilt is on the person in the case of obstruction or prevention, you need to look very seriously at having a statutory individual duty of candour.

2,016 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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