Mr. Tim Hanly:

The safeguarding of vulnerable persons policy has in-built timeframes, which mandate how quickly a preliminary screening is submitted to the HSE. Our expectation of service is that we are notified within three days and that a protection plan is done within 20 days. Those timeframes were put in to ensure a timely response. Where there have been difficulties with our time responses, we have put in place performance indicators. Professional staff apply judgement with regard to prioritisation, urgency and high-risk cases. More serious cases are considered more quickly. Where there is no professional team to assess someone, there may be vulnerable people in the community with limited access to support structures, and they may be prioritised. There are targets in our report. The service is meeting those targets for the most part. There certainly are areas in which we would like to see improvement as well. The critical point is that we ensure that people at the greatest risk are prioritised for attention. Timeframes for notification and follow-up were clearly put into the policy. Once reasonable grounds are established, that is, once the safeguarding team in respect of community-based referrals or the designated officer in respect of the residential service setting has come to a conclusion that there are reasonable grounds - by which we mean the service user or person in the community faces an ongoing risk - there is a clear timeframe to put in place a protection plan. There is work to do and it has come out in our review that we could strengthen practice and procedure. We need to look at balancing timeframes with risk assessment. Timeframes have a place but so too does prioritising where the greatest risk is.