A consultation on working together for people who go missing in Scotland

Overview is positive; the purpose is clear and should support consistency in approach and practice across the country.

A national definition is welcomed.

This is the same definition used by Police Scotland in their review "Patients who go missing from NHS Care in Scotland- National partnership Agreement”

One concern is that the proposed definition would exclude children/young people who are vulnerable to exploitation (including CSE) who are ‘missing’ from their home/placement but whose whereabouts may be known eg. ‘party flat’ and for whom a multi-agency response may still be required.

Clear, straightforward language which is easy to understand – relatively jargon free; case studies are helpful; it will support the development of local single and multi-agency protocols.

Two areas highlighted for further consideration:

Further consideration to those who could fall through the gaps of current legislation, for example 16-18 year olds and adults who do not meet the 3 point criteria as set out in the Adult Support and Protection (Scotland) Act 2007.

The strategy talks about adults missing from care homes and hospital wards, it would be important to consider ‘vulnerable’ adults who go missing from the community

Further consideration to how we can improve ‘return interview’, with children and young people and should we consider a similar return interview for adults

Awareness raising of the issues and the strategy and the development of local protocols to implement the strategy.

The work from the local protocol groups with Police Scotland will be key to ensure a common language used and all agencies being clear regarding how they should respond.

Rights of adults to choose not to engage, rights to go ‘missing’ if they want

A specific area highlighted was that the practicalities of interviewing people returning can be resource intensive. In addition there are also wider capacity issues and it would be important to dovetail the strategy/supporting actions with existing systems.

The reference to the importance of risk assessments, which would identify any particular risks to an individual who was thought to be missing, is more likely to enable sharing of particular risk factors for an individual thought to be missing. The importance as stated in the strategy of multi agency communication would again reinforce this. However – the definition as provided should assist in determining the approach to be taken, if it was considered that the person was at risk of harm.

Commitment 1 highlights the approach is ‘person centred’ and references the Children and YP (Scotland ) Act 2014 and GIRFEC which puts children’s wellbeing at the centre, no issues identified with regard to negative implications of the strategy in relation to children wellbeing.

With regard to adults, there are not thought to be any negative implications – that the strategy assists in putting in place a structured local approach.

None highlighted

Overview positive. They appear straight forward, and in keeping with current work within mental health and learning disability services in NHS Lanarkshire.

Please refer to questions 5 and 6

In addition, the Police Scotland partnership agreement further categorizes patients as Absent Missing (further differentiated Low, medium & high risk)

There would therefore be differences in response, and level of sharing information amongst partner agencies would be dependent on the level of risk identified in the patient's daily risk assessment.

The benefits of this over-arching strategy and the work involved with police Scotland is clarity regarding terms used by all agencies and therefore everyone is clearer on how they should respond.

Overall the Supporting Actions reflect best practice and will support the implementation of the strategy at a local level.


‘Early Adopters’
With regard to being ‘early adopters’ to test out the proposals (as per the first paragraph of the accompanying letter), the North Lanarkshire Partnership would welcome further information about the expectations of being an ‘early adopter’ and would there be additional support/resources. It might be helpful to consider ‘small test of change’, for example a specific proposal/action, in a number of areas as opposed and sharing the learning before final roll out across Scotland.