§ Mr. BurstowTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans his Department has to review the implementation of the "No Secrets" guidance. [140639]
§ Dr. LadymanThe Department of Health has no immediate plans to further review the implementation of "No Secrets", which provided a framework for local agencies to use when developing their multi-agency codes of practice for preventing and tackling the abuse of vulnerable adults. These codes had to be in place by 31 October 2001.
Last year, the Department of Health commissioned the Centre for Policy on Ageing to analyse these local codes of practice. In January 2003, the Department issued the main messages from the analysis titled, "No Secrets: Findings from the analysis of focal codes of practice". The analysis indicates that by and large local councils have met the requirements required by "No Secrets" and that considerable progress has been made towards improving co-ordination between agencies when dealing with adult abuse cases. The analysis can be accessed on the Department's website.