SafeguardingUK — Manager Reference Manual

1. The Manager Dashboard

Companion video: M1 — The Manager Dashboard

What this is for

The Dashboard is your day-to-day home screen. It gives you a live picture of safeguarding activity across your whole organisation — total concerns, what's open, what's escalated, what's critical — and lets you jump straight into anything that needs attention.

The four stat tiles

Across the top of your dashboard, four numbers show live counts across your whole organisation. Each tile is also a button: click any of them to jump to the matching list of concerns on the Reports page, where you can filter, print, or export.

• Total Concerns — every concern ever raised
• Open — concerns that aren't yet closed
• Escalated — concerns referred internally or to a Local Authority
• Critical — open concerns at the highest severity

Critical alert banner

If you have any critical concerns that need immediate attention, a red alert banner appears above the tiles. That's the system putting the most urgent stuff in front of your eyes first.

Latest 10 Concerns

Below the tiles, the Latest 10 Concerns table is a quick snapshot of recent activity across your whole organisation (not just concerns you've raised yourself). The list is sorted by severity — Critical first, then High, Medium, Low — with the newest at the top of each severity band.

Click Review on any row to open the full concern and act on it.

Concerns by Category chart

Below the table, a simple bar chart shows how your concerns break down by category. A quick visual of where your organisation's concerns are clustering — useful for your monthly review.

Raising a concern yourself

You can raise concerns from your own account using the Report a Concern button at the top of the page. Useful when a care worker tells you something verbally and asks you to log it on their behalf.

Give Feedback

The Give Feedback button in the top right is for when something in the system isn't working for you. Click it, type, send. We read every message.

2. Reviewing and Triaging a Concern

Companion video: M2 — Review and triage a concern

What this is for

When one of your care workers raises a safeguarding concern, you're notified. This section walks through what you do next — opening the concern, deciding the severity, updating the status, escalating if needed, adding notes, and closing it when it's done.

Opening a concern

On your manager dashboard, the Latest 10 Concerns list shows recent concerns sorted by severity — Critical first, then High, Medium, Low. Click Review on any row to open the full record. From there you'll see:

• Who raised it and when
• The service user it's about (or the general subject, if it's an off-duty / general concern)
• Category, specific type, severity (as set by the care worker)
• Location and date of incident
• The full description in the care worker's words
• Any immediate action they took
• The audit trail of everything done so far

Deciding the severity

The care worker has already picked a severity from their point of view. As the manager, you have context they don't — history with the service user, patterns across other concerns, the wider risk picture. You can agree with their assessment or override it using the Severity Determination dropdown.

The system records BOTH the care worker's level and yours. CQC will want to see both.

Updating the status

The Update Status dropdown moves the concern through four stages:

• Open — just raised, not yet reviewed
• Under Review — you're working on it
• Escalated Internally — passed to someone more senior in your team
• Escalated to Local Authority — referred to the LA safeguarding team

Closing is a separate action — see "Closing a concern" below.

Escalating

If a concern meets the threshold for a safeguarding referral, tick one or more of:

• Line Manager
• Local Authority
• Police
• NHS / GP
• CQC
• Other

Add a note about who you contacted and when. This is the audit trail CQC will ask for later.

Adding manager notes

The Notes field is for your own observations, separate from the care worker's description.

If you decide NOT to escalate

Fill in the If not escalating — reason field. That gives you a defensible record if anyone questions the decision later.

Closing a concern

Use the dedicated Close Concern button at the bottom of the manager panel. You'll need an outcome summary — what you did, what changed, who's been informed. The outcome is required.

Deleting a record (rare)

The red Delete this Record section at the bottom is for genuine errors only — duplicate entries, wrong person, test records. You must give a written reason. The concern is soft-deleted — it remains visible to your organisation's head administrator for audit purposes. It is NOT permanently destroyed.

3. Generating a Report Pack for CQC

Companion video: M3 — Generate a Report Pack for CQC

What this is for

The Report Pack is a print-ready document with one page per concern. It's what you'd hand to a CQC inspector, save as a PDF for your own records, or print and file. Cover sheet + contents table + one detail page per concern, including the full audit trail.

How to generate one

1. Click Reports in the menu.
2. Click the Report Pack tab at the top of the Reports page.
3. Set your filters (see below).
4. Click Generate Report Pack — a new tab opens with a print-ready document.
5. Use your browser's Print menu → Save as PDF to get a single PDF file.

The filters

As you change the filters, the count on the screen updates so you know exactly how many concerns will end up in the pack.

What's in the pack

Cover sheet: your organisation name, the date range, the filters you used, the total count, and a contents table of every concern listed by reference number.

Per concern (one page each): reference number, service user, date, category, type, severity (both reported and determined), status, escalation, the full description, immediate action taken, and the audit trail.

4. Managing Your Staff

Companion video: M4 — Managing your staff

What this is for

The Staff page is where you add new care workers, update existing ones' details, change their permissions, resend their welcome email, or deactivate them when they leave.

Adding a staff member

1. Click Staff in the menu.
2. Click Add Staff Member.
3. Fill in:
   • First name, last name (required)
   • Middle name(s) (optional)
   • Email address (required, must be unique across the platform)
   • Mobile number
   • Job title
4. Click Create Account & Send Welcome Email.

The system creates the account, generates a temporary password, and emails the staff member their sign-in details automatically.

Job titles

The job title dropdown has seven options:

• Care Worker
• Senior Care Worker
• Support Worker
• Domestic
• Office
• Manager
• Deputy Manager

Managing an existing staff member

Click their name in the Staff list to open their profile. From there you can:

• Change their job title
• Give them manager access (promote to Manager) or set them back to care worker only
• Resend their welcome email if they've lost the original
• Deactivate them when they leave the company

What deactivating means

Adding lots at once

If you've got more than a handful of staff to add, use the Download CSV Template and Upload CSV buttons at the top of the Staff page. See Section 7 — Bulk-Importing from a Spreadsheet.

5. Managing Your Service Users

Companion video: M5 — Managing your service users

What this is for

The Service Users page holds the list of people in your care. Add them, edit their details, see which care workers are assigned to each, and deactivate them when they leave your care.

Adding a service user

1. Click Service Users in the menu.
2. Click Add Service User.
3. Fill in the required fields:
   • First name, last name
   • Date of birth
   • Postcode
   • Care type
4. Plus any optional fields:
   • Middle name(s)
   • Full address
   • Email
   • Contract reference
   • Key contact name
   • Key contact phone number

Worth filling in the optional fields if you have them — they make audit reports more useful later.

Care types

Age groups (automatic)

Each service user's age group updates automatically as they get older. No manual maintenance:

• Child (0–15)
• Young Person (16–17)
• Adult (18–64)
• Older Adult (65+)

Editing a service user

Click Edit in their row on the Service Users page. You can update any of their details, or deactivate them when they leave your care.

Adding lots at once

See Section 7 — Bulk-Importing from a Spreadsheet.

6. Assigning Care Workers to Service Users

Companion video: M6 — Assigning care workers to service users

What this is for

Assignment sets up the working relationship between your team and the people in your care. It matters because when a care worker raises a concern, the service user dropdown shows only the people they're assigned to. That keeps the form short for them and stops accidental concerns being filed against the wrong person.

Two ways to do it

You can start from the service user (assigning carers to them) or start from the care worker (assigning service users to them). Either gets you to the same result — pick whichever is easier for what you're doing.

Starting from a service user

1. On the Service Users page, click Assign or Manage in their Staff column.
2. A box opens with every active care worker.
3. Tick the ones you want assigned to that service user; untick any you want to remove.
4. Click Save.

Starting from a care worker

1. On the Staff page, click Assign or Manage in their Service Users column.
2. A box opens with every active service user.
3. Tick the ones the care worker is responsible for; untick any they're no longer working with.
4. Click Save.

7. Bulk-Importing from a Spreadsheet

Companion video: M7 — Bulk-importing from a spreadsheet

What this is for

If you're moving from another system, or you're setting up SafeguardingUK for the first time, manually adding twenty or fifty people one by one is slow. The bulk import does the whole list in one go from a CSV file.

Importing service users

1. On the Service Users page, click Download CSV Template. You get a blank spreadsheet with the right columns.
2. Fill in one row per service user.
3. Save the file as a CSV (not .xlsx).
4. Click Upload CSV and pick the file.

Required columns: name, contract.
Optional columns: date of birth, address, care type, key contact name, key contact phone.

The system reads every row, validates the data, and creates the records in one pass.

Importing staff

1. On the Staff page, click Download CSV Template. You get a blank spreadsheet with the right columns.
2. Fill in one row per staff member.
3. Save the file as a CSV (not .xlsx).
4. Click Upload CSV and pick the file.

Required columns: name, email.
Optional columns: phone, job title.

Important difference between bulk import and manual add

Easier alternative

If you'd rather not handle the temp passwords manually, after the bulk import you can use Resend Welcome Email on each staff member's profile. That sends them a fresh temporary password through the normal email flow.

Tips

• Always download the template first — your column headings need to match exactly.
• Email addresses must be unique across the whole platform — if a staff member's email is already used elsewhere on SafeguardingUK, the row will skip.
• If anything fails validation, the system tells you which row failed and why, so you can fix it and try again.

8. Trends — Spotting Patterns Over Time

Companion video: M8 — Trends — spotting patterns over time

What this is for

The Trend Analysis page is where you step back from the day-to-day worklist and look at the wider picture. What kinds of concerns keep coming up. Where the hotspots are in your organisation. Whether things are getting better or worse over time.

Opening it

1. Click Reports in the menu.
2. Click the Trend Analysis button at the top of the Reports page.

The five views

Switch between five chart views using the tabs at the top:

Stat boxes above the chart

Six clickable stat boxes sit above the main chart. Each acts as a filter — click one and the chart below narrows to just that slice:

• Total concerns
• High and Critical count
• Escalated count
• Last month
• Closed
• Open / In Review

Changing the date range

Six quick-pick buttons at the top — All Time, This Year, Last 12 Months, Last 6 Months, Last 3 Months, Last Month.

You can also filter to a specific service user or a specific staff member.

When to use it

• For your monthly safeguarding review
• Before a CQC inspection
• Any time you want to step back from the day-to-day and see the whole picture
• When a pattern is starting to bother you — Trends lets you check whether the pattern is real

9. The Audit Log — Who Did What, When

Companion video: M9 — The audit log — who did what, when

What this is for

The Incident Audit page is the organisation-wide record of every action taken on every concern — when it was raised, who looked at it, when the severity was changed, when it was escalated, when it was closed. It's the audit trail that proves your records haven't been tampered with.

Opening it

1. Click Reports in the menu.
2. Click the Incident Audit button at the top of the Reports page.

The layout

Each concern appears as its own block, with its full audit log nested inside. For each concern you'll see:

• Reference number
• Service user
• Incident date
• Severity (with manager override flagged if changed)
• Status
• How many days it's been open
• Underneath: every action taken on it, with a timestamp and the name of the person who did it

The three view tabs

Filters

• Date range
• Specific staff member
• Specific service user

Click Run Report to apply your filter. Click Reset to clear everything.

Exporting

Three export buttons at the top of the page:

• Print (paper or save-as-PDF via the browser print dialog)
• PDF (server-rendered PDF)
• CSV (one row per audit-log entry)

When to use it

Day-to-day you won't open this page. It's there for when you need it — an investigation, a CQC question, a dispute about what happened on a specific date.

10. Notification Settings

Companion video: M10 — Notification settings

What this is for

This page controls how your managers are alerted when concerns are raised or escalated. It has two channels you can switch on or off, plus the manager contact details list and a log of recent alerts.

Opening it

Click Notifications in the menu (or Notification Settings in the mobile menu).

The two channels

Email alerts always run, no matter what these toggles are set to. The SMS and call channels are extra layers for when something is urgent.

Alerts by severity

Manager Contact Details

Below the toggles, a table lists every active manager with their email and mobile number. SMS and call alerts are sent to the mobile numbers shown here. If a number is missing for one of your managers, ask them to add it in their profile (Section 16 — My Profile).

Recent Alerts Sent

At the bottom, a log of every notification the system has sent recently — email, SMS, or call — with channel, recipient, trigger, and status (Sent / Failed). Useful for spot-checking that alerts are getting through.

11. The Reports Page — Your Unified Hub

Companion video: M11 — The Reports page (your unified hub)

What this is for

The Reports page is your hub for everything to do with looking back at concerns. Running reports. Generating CQC packs. Reviewing Speak Up submissions. Finding archived records. Downloading a full data backup. Everything that's about reading the record (rather than acting on a live concern) sits here.

Opening it

Click Reports in the menu.

Four quick-action buttons at the top

Five main tabs

Filters available on All Concerns

• Date range (with quick-pick buttons: All Time / This Year / Last 12m / Last 3m / Last Month)
• Service user
• Staff member
• Status
• Severity
• Contract

Group By options

On the All Concerns tab, you can group the results by:

• Severity (worst first)
• Status
• Service user
• Staff member
• Contract

Export buttons

Every tab has PDF and CSV export buttons at the top of the results.

When to use it

• When CQC asks for something specific
• When your owner asks for a summary
• For your monthly review
• When you need to find a concern from months ago

12. The Categories Page — Read-Only Reference

Companion video: M12 — The Categories page (read-only reference)

What this is for

The Categories page is your reference for the safeguarding category list — the categories your care workers pick from when they raise a concern, and the sub-categories underneath each.

Opening it

Click Categories in the menu.

What you see

The page lists every category — Physical Abuse, Financial Abuse, Neglect, and so on. For each category, three things are shown:

• The category name
• Which age groups it applies to (Child / Young Person / Adult / Older Adult)
• How many sub-categories sit underneath it

On each category's row, click the Sub-categories → button to drill in. So Physical Abuse might break down into Hitting / Restraint / Inappropriate use of medication and so on.

Why you can't edit it

The category list is shared across every SafeguardingUK customer and managed centrally by us. You can browse it but you can't edit it from this page. The reason is consistency — when CQC see a "Neglect" concern from your home and a "Neglect" concern from a different home, they mean exactly the same thing.

Requesting a change

If you ever feel something is missing, or a category name should be different, look at the blue note at the top of the page — it ends with an underlined link that says contact form. Click that and send us a request. We review every one.

13. Reviewing Speak Up Reports

Companion video: M13 — Reviewing Speak Up reports

What this is for

A Speak Up report is a safeguarding concern that someone has submitted without going through the normal concern flow — usually because they don't want their name attached, or they're not a member of staff. It might be about a colleague, a manager, a process, or something they've seen that they're worried about.

Opening Speak Up

Two ways to reach the same list:

• Speak Up in the menu, OR
• Reports in the menu → Speak Up tab

The seven Speak Up categories

Reviewing a report

Click into any report to see the full description and to act on it. Your manager options:

• Status — New, Reviewed, Actioned, or Closed
• Severity — Low, Medium, High, or Critical
• Notes — what you've done so far
• Escalated to — Line Manager, Local Authority, Police, NHS / GP, CQC, or Other
• Outcome — when it's resolved

Anonymous vs named

If the reporter ticked "Please contact me" during submission, their email is included so you can reach out. If they stayed fully anonymous, you've got just the report — work with what's there.

Exporting

From the Reports → Speak Up tab, you can export every Speak Up report as a CSV file for your records.

14. Archived Records

Companion video: M14 — Archived records

What this is for

The Archive is where closed concerns and closed Speak Up reports go after their fourteen-day visible period on your dashboard. It's a permanent (until expiry) read-only record of everything that's been resolved.

Opening the Archive

1. Click Reports in the menu.
2. Click the Archive tab at the top.

Two lists

Both have a date filter so you can narrow to a specific period — for example, all archived concerns from last year.

What each archived record contains

Each archived concern still shows everything that was in it when it was closed:

• Service user
• Severity (both reported and determined)
• Status
• The full description
• The outcome you wrote when you closed it

Click into any of them to see the full record, exactly as it was.

Exporting

You can export either list as a CSV file using the ⬇ CSV download buttons. Useful for handing over to CQC, or for your own records.

Retention

15. Download Full Backup

Companion video: M15 — Download Full Backup

What this is for

A one-click download of all your organisation's data — concerns, Speak Up reports, audit log, staff, service users, the categories — as a single ZIP file. Useful for your own off-platform records, your accountant, CQC, or just peace of mind.

How to download

1. Click Reports in the menu.
2. Click the ⬇ Download Full Backup button at the top of the page.

Your browser will download a zip file straight away. The filename includes your organisation name and today's date, so you can keep dated copies.

What's in the zip

16. My Profile

Companion video: M16 — My Profile

What this is for

The My Profile page is where you keep your own contact details up to date. Critically, the mobile number you put here is the one used for SMS and phone call alerts when high or critical concerns come in.

Opening it

Click My Profile in the menu.

The profile section

Top of the page — your name and contact details:

• First name (required)
• Middle name(s)
• Last name (required)
• Email address
• Mobile number

Email — managers vs care workers

As a manager you can change your own email address from this page. Care workers can't — they have to ask you to change theirs from the Staff page.

Changing your password

Below the profile, the Change Password section. Three fields:

• Current password
• New password
• Confirm new password

Password rules

• Minimum 12 characters
• Cannot be a password seen in known data breaches (the system checks for you — if your chosen password has appeared in a leak, it'll refuse and ask you to pick another)

What happens when you change your password