FEARS of a sudden spike in concerns about adult abuse in Cumbria have been allayed by county council safeguarding bosses.

Latest figures show there were 400 concerns raised about adults in the Barrow area, 293 in South Lakeland, 258 in Copeland and 600 in Carlisle during the last three months of 2018.

The rise on the three months before, ranged from concerns about physical, financial, emotional, psychological and sexual abuse, as well as neglect and domestic violence.

Adrienne Halliwell, Cumbria’s senior manager for safeguarding and care, has told councillors that the rise was due to more consistent logging of concerns by social workers.

She told a meeting of the scrutiny advisory board for adults on Monday: “There has been a significant increase in the number of concerns raised. This, we believe, is due to better reporting of concerns rather than an increase in actual abuse.”

She said a number of council offices around the county had been visited by managers to ensure safeguarding concerns are fully logged.

Mrs Halliwell said anybody could raise a concern such as if they were worried about bruising on someone.

She said staff would take the detail of the concern being raised and log it as a specific safeguarding concern.

“Someone will be assigned to make an initial inquiry and speak to the individual on whom the concern has been raised to see if there is a reasonable explanation of what has been reported,” she said.

“If Mrs Smith tells us she had bumped into a wardrobe, at that point, it doesn’t progress and we close the concern down. If the initial inquiry cannot provide that assurance and there is not a good explanation for whatever the concern is, then it will progress to a full inquiry.”

Concerns about self-neglect – where someone neglects to do things which threaten their personal health and safety – has seen an increase in Cumbria.

Self-neglect involves someone neglecting their own hygiene, health or surroundings, where they fail to seek help for their health or social care needs or stop managing their personal affairs.

Cllr Derek Gawne said sometimes the authority’s hands were tied.

“If you go into someone’s home and they say they don’t need help, or they can manage, and you say they are in need of something but they don’t want it, what can you do?” said the Conservative member for Roosecote.

Mrs Halliwell said she would hope staff would persevere with “slow persuasion” but they had “no powers of entry” and needed to respect someone else’s home.

Cllr Nick Cotton, the Liberal Democrat councillor for Sedbergh and Kirkby Lonsdale, said: “The overall trend shows figures are going up and episodes of concern are rising and that’s bad, but when you look at the reason, it’s because staff are being encouraged to report and log more, which is a good thing.”