Safeguarding children and adults at risk is an overriding professional duty for all registered eye care practitioners and practices in the same way as for other health and social care practitioners and providers.
In addition to the elements included on QiO, the whole sector, as part of the Optical Confederation, collaborated to develop and publish this guidance on safeguarding, mental capacity, deprivation of liberties and the prevent strategy to help protect children and vulnerable adults.
This includes:
- Overview (pages 1–2)
- Part 1 (pages 3–8) provides a simple five-step guide for all staff and practices to safeguard children and adults at risk and to comply with all relevant legislation. It will help you to be vigilant, able to recognise and report abuse, and help keep your patients and colleagues safe. This part of the guidance was updated in August 2019 in line with the revised Intercollegiate Guidance for Safeguarding Children (2019) and Intercollegiate Adult Safeguarding for Health Care Staff
- Part 2 (pages 9–10) sets out the responsibilities of optical staff and practices under the UK-wide Prevent Strategy. This requires healthcare providers to work with partner organisations to identify individuals at risk of radicalisation and to refer them to regional Prevent teams for support. The steps to follow in such cases are similar to those for safeguarding other adults, young people and children who are at risk
- Part 3 (pages 11–12) summarises responsibilities for optical practitioners, staff and practices
- Annexes 1 to 6 (pages 13–24) cover: what to look out for; signs that a person is being radicalised; template referral and notification forms; declaration by non-registered staff member, and a body map for records and referrals