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Jeremy Dixon, Safeguarding Adults and the Law. An A-Z of Law and Practice, 3rd edn, Michael Mandelstam, The British Journal of Social Work, Volume 52, Issue 2, March 2022, Pages 1182–1183, https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcaa063
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Safeguarding people at risk of abuse or neglect is a core part of social work practice. Whilst much has been written about how child protection social workers should assess and manage such risks, books on adult safeguarding are much sparser in comparison. The third edition of ‘Safeguarding Adults and the Law’ is a welcome addition to work on adult safeguarding, providing an overview of safeguarding under the Care Act 2014 and other legislation.
This book is a reference book and so is not designed to be read from cover to cover. The introduction sets out the key issues and challenges for adult safeguarding in the context of health and social care. This section provides a clear picture of how adult safeguarding in the UK has developed. It also takes a critical view towards current developments, noting policy-makers’ reluctance to tackle sensitive issues, such as abuse within the NHS and abuse by informal carers. Following this, the legal framework for adult safeguarding is briefly set out. The remainder of the book is organised alphabetically, ranging from ‘Abuse’ at the beginning to ‘Witnesses’ at the end. This marks a change from previous editions in which content was organised thematically. The new format is an improvement and makes the book much easier to navigate. Mandelstam should be congratulated for having a clear style of writing. The book avoids legalese and should be clear to social workers based in adult care or specialist safeguarding teams. It seems an odd thing to comment on, but I was impressed by the formatting of this book. Case law summaries are clearly distinguishable from the main text and the case law references are given as footnotes, making it easy for practitioners to look up should they require further details. The typeface used is also large. This is a pleasant contrast to many law books which use extremely small type, prompting many of us to lurch for our varifocals. The style and formatting make it well suited to be used as an office book that can be kept on the desk and referred to when working with cases.