This meeting looks at a person's health needs. It often happens around a specific event, like when someone is leaving the hospital. The person who needs help, their family, or their carers may or may not be involved. It depends on each situation.
Multi-agency working
Introduction
This guidance has been produced with the intention of summarising and clarifying best practice for multi-agency working. This guidance is not exhaustive and should be read alongside the Sussex Safeguarding Adults Policy and Procedures Section 1.1.3. Multi-agency working (2026). That section covers the convening of multi-agency meetings in-depth, including a list of circumstances when a multi-agency meeting should be considered, and how to respond to disagreements between staff and agencies.
Your responsibilities
When working with adults with care and support needs, and particularly those with multiple and compound needs, it is essential that you engage in multi-agency working. This means working closely and well together (i.e. collaboratively) with staff from the involved agencies. This will ensure that everybody involved in an adult’s care is aware of, and understands, each other’s work and views so that the adult has the best experience of a co-ordinated approach.
This will help to ensure you are providing a high standard of care and will allow you to share your experience and expertise with other agencies, increasing the likelihood of positive outcomes for the adult.
Engaging in multi-agency work
To engage in effective multi-agency working, you should consider the following:
Convene a multi-agency meeting
A multi-agency meeting can be either in-person or held virtually. It can be a one-off meeting, or a regularly scheduled meeting. This is the best way to ensure that there is effective information-sharing and communication and is the ideal opportunity to agree an action plan for the adult. Any agency can convene the meeting, but it is preferable to be led by the agency most involved in supporting the adult.
These meetings can have a number of names, depending on who is involved and the primary purpose of the meeting. You can read about each of these, below.
This meeting occurs if it is deemed that someone lacks the mental capacity to make a decision for themselves. Any actions taken for them must be in their best interests.
This is a meeting for agencies to share information on the highest risk domestic abuse cases. MARAC representatives discuss options for increasing safety for the victim and create a coordinated action plan.
MAPPA is a system where the police, probation officers and prison staff work together with other groups to assess and manage people who have committed violent or sexual crimes. This is to keep the public safe. We can make a referral when we have tried everything else and are very concerned for someone's safety.
Record your engagement with the adult
Recording your engagement with the adults helps to ensure that you are following the principles of Making Safeguarding Personal. You should seek to actively involve the adult in discussions about their care, and make sure that you are recording written evidence of their views and thoughts. These are important to share with relevant agencies, so that everybody is on the same page, and the adult’s wishes are central to multi-agency work taking place.
Share information
The key to effective information-sharing is to share information with the right people, at the right time. This supports staff to make fully informed decisions about what action to take, and when. All agencies have a responsibility to share any relevant information they have which may protect an adult from abuse or neglect. For more information about information-sharing, see the Sussex Information Sharing Guide and Protocol.
Undertake a multi-agency risk assessment
A multi-agency risk assessment should be undertaken to inform a multi-agency risk management plan. The risk assessment should clearly record:
- relevant and anticipated risks
- the adult’s views and wishes
- actions to be taken and by whom
- mental capacity and best interests decisions
- how and who will share this information with the adult
Seek support
Don’t be afraid to seek support from other staff and/or agencies. This could include discussing cases which present a challenge with your manager as part of supervision, reaching out to other agencies directly, or seeking guidance through a referral to the Multi-Agency Risk Management subgroup in your area:
You can also refer to the Sussex Safeguarding Escalation and Resolution Policy (PDF, 214KB) for support in consistent and timely decision-making where there may be disagreements or issues arising between staff and agencies in relation to adult safeguarding.