Important
Phone 999 if a crime is being committed or if someone is in immediate danger.
You can tell adult social care about concerns, that:
- an adult living in Leicestershire is being abused or neglected
- an adult can't look after themselves because of the abuse or neglect
Please tell us if you're worried about an adult, even if you're not sure that abuse or neglect is taking place or don't have all the details. You can read more to understand and recognise abuse and an adult at risk.
Report concerns online
Report welfare concerns as a member of the public
Members of the public can report concerns about a vulnerable adult at any time, complete the:
Report welfare concerns form (for public use)
Report a safeguarding or welfare concern as a professional
Professionals can report concerns about the welfare of an adult, complete the:
Report welfare concerns referral form (for professionals)
Professionals can report concerns about abuse or neglect of a vulnerable adult, complete the:
Report Safeguarding referral form (for professionals)
Report concerns by phone
If you would prefer to speak to someone about your concern you can phone:
Adult Social Care (during office hours)
Phone: 0116 305 0004 (Monday to Thursday, 8.30am to 5pm, Friday 8.30am to 4.30pm)
Out of hours Emergency Duty Team
Phone: 0116 305 0888 (Evenings, weekends, bank holidays)
Recognise abuse and an adult at risk
Identify an adult at risk
An adult at risk is someone who:
- has needs for care and support
- is experiencing or at risk of abuse or neglect and
- is unable to protect themselves against the abuse, neglect or risk of abuse or neglect as a result of their needs
Recognise abuse
Examples of abuse include:
- Physical - hitting, slapping, rough handling, restraining roughly, using medication to keep someone drowsy
- Neglect - causing someone harm by not giving them the care or help they need
- Psychological - making threats of harm or abandonment, harassment, humiliation, intimidation, verbal abuse, bullying, isolation or cyber bullying
- Financial or material - pressuring someone to give away money, stealing money, benefits or belongings
- Sexual - rape, indecent exposure, being made to do something sexual or watch something sexual that they don't want to, didn't agree to or couldn't agree to
- Organisational - repeated instances of poor or inappropriate care in a care home or by a group of carers, such as rigid and insensitive routines or lack of privacy
- Modern slavery can include human trafficking and forcing someone to work for little or no pay
- Self neglect - when an adult at risk does not take care of their own basic daily living needs
- Discriminatory - where someone is being harassed or mistreated because of their ethnic origin, religion, faith, language, age, sexuality, gender or disability
- Domestic abuse
Recognise an abuser
An abuser can be anyone:
- relatives and partners
- friends and neighbours
- care workers and volunteers
- another resident of a care home or other users of a service
- someone paid to provide a health or social care service
- strangers
What happens next
- We will do all we can to make sure the person is safe and protected.
- If a crime is taking place, we will contact the police.
- We won't necessarily contact you. We aim to tell you the outcome of your referral where possible in line with our confidentiality policy.
- We will talk to you before we ever share your details (with the police, for example).
- We'll talk to the person about what they want to happen, investigate the concerns with our partner agencies, and take appropriate action. This is called a safeguarding enquiry.
- For less serious general concerns, we might not act on individual reports however if we get lots of reports about the same thing we will investigate.