Safeguarding in the Workplace: Not Just a Care Sector Problem
Written by Stephanie Austin — Owner & Lead Trainer, Prima Cura Training | Last reviewed: May 2026 | Next review: May 2027
Safeguarding in the Workplace: Not Just a Care Sector Problem
Say ‘safeguarding’ in most workplaces outside health and social care, and you’ll get one of two responses. Either a vague nod from someone who half-remembers a slide from their induction, or a blank look and the quiet assumption that it’s somebody else’s problem.
Neither response is good enough. And frankly, the blank look worries me less. At least the person who doesn’t know is more likely to ask.
Safeguarding applies well beyond care homes and schools. It applies to any organisation where staff have contact with children, vulnerable adults, or people who may be at risk. That is a longer list than most businesses realise.
It Applies to More Businesses Than You Think
The legal framework for safeguarding in England is built around the Children Act 1989, the Children Act 2004, and the Care Act 2014. Statutory guidance, including Working Together to Safeguard Children 2026, sets out what is expected of organisations working with or encountering children and adults at risk.
The regulated sectors (care, education, health) carry the most explicit duties. But the principle that organisations should not cause harm and should act when they encounter someone at risk extends well beyond them.
If your business appears in the table below, safeguarding is relevant to you:
| Sector | Why Safeguarding Applies |
| Health and social care | Direct, ongoing contact with adults and children at risk. Highest volume of formal safeguarding activity. |
| Education and early years | Employee well-being, domestic abuse disclosures, and responsibilities toward agency or contract workers. |
| Hospitality and leisure | High-footfall environments with frequent contact with members of the public, including vulnerable adults and unaccompanied children. |
| Retail | Customer-facing staff regularly encounter vulnerable people: those experiencing domestic abuse, exploitation, or mental health crises. |
| Construction and facilities | Sites accessible to the public, lone working, and contact with subcontractors or service users in domestic settings. |
| Events and visitor attractions | Large volumes of visitors including children and vulnerable adults, often in transient environments with limited oversight. |
| Transport and logistics | Lone workers, domestic deliveries, and contact with vulnerable people in their own homes. |
| Corporate and office-based | Employee wellbeing, domestic abuse disclosures, and responsibilities toward agency or contract workers. |
And that’s before we factor in any business that employs young people, has staff disclosing domestic abuse, or works in people’s homes. The honest answer is that most organisations have at least some safeguarding responsibility. The question is whether they know it.
Case Study: What Happens When the Structures Aren’t There
A few years ago, I was brought in to deliver safeguarding training as part of a large national project. The organisation ran high-footfall public-facing sites across the country. We’re talking thousands of visitors a day at each location. The project ran for around 18 months, and I trained their site managers.
What wasn’t in place was everything else.
The company, a large international organisation, had not appointed a Designated Safeguarding Lead for this project. There was no referral process. There were no recording systems. Staff had received awareness training from me, which meant they now knew what a safeguarding concern looked like. But when they saw one, there was nowhere to go.
So they came to me.
Over the course of that project, I received more than 500 safeguarding concerns from staff across multiple sites. Five hundred. Each one was a real person, a visitor, a member of the public, who a trained staff member had identified as potentially at risk. I signposted and helped with every single one.
I am not a statutory safeguarding authority. I am a trainer. The fact that I became the de facto referral point for hundreds of concerns is not a reflection of anything other than the complete absence of the structures that should have existed from day one.
| The lesson here is simple. Training staff to recognise safeguarding concerns is only useful if those staff have somewhere to go when they spot one. Awareness without a process is not safeguarding. It is stress handed to the people least equipped to deal with it. The organisation in this example was not negligent in any malicious sense. But the gap between ‘we have trained our staff’ and ‘we have a functioning safeguarding framework’ was enormous. And it was the public who bore the risk. |
What a Safeguarding Concern Looks Like Outside Care
One of the reasons businesses outside the care sector dismiss safeguarding as ‘not for us’ is that they picture it through a care lens. A frail elderly person in a nursing home, or a child on a child protection plan. Those are safeguarding scenarios, absolutely. But they are not the only ones.
Any member of staff who has regular contact with the public may encounter the following:
| Type of Concern | What It Might Look Like in Practice |
| Unexplained injury or physical signs | Bruising, marks, or injuries inconsistent with the explanation given. Someone who flinches or becomes visibly uncomfortable when certain topics come up. |
| Behavioural changes | A person who was previously engaging becomes withdrawn, anxious, or avoidant. Changes that don’t have an obvious explanation. |
| Disclosure, direct or indirect | Someone tells a member of staff something has happened to them, or hints at it without stating it directly. Both require the same response: listen, don’t investigate, record, refer. |
| Neglect indicators | A person who appears malnourished, unkempt, or unwell in a way that suggests they are not being adequately cared for or supported. |
| Exploitation signals | Financial exploitation, controlling relationships, someone who appears to be acting under the direction of another person. Common in adult safeguarding and increasingly recognised in non-care settings. |
| Child welfare concerns | An unaccompanied child, a child who appears distressed, hungry, or frightened, or a child whose behaviour suggests something is wrong at home. |
The response in every case is the same: listen, do not investigate, record what has been said or observed, and refer to the designated person within your organisation. Staff who have not been trained don’t know that. Staff who have been trained but have no designated person to refer to are stuck.
What Your Organisation Should Have in Place
This isn’t a full compliance checklist. It is the minimum that any public-facing organisation should be able to point to when someone asks whether safeguarding has been thought about:
| ✓ | A named Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL) | Someone with the authority, training, and time to manage concerns, maintain records, and liaise with statutory agencies. |
| ✓ | A written safeguarding policy | Specific to your organisation, reviewed annually, and accessible to all staff. |
| ✓ | Clear referral pathways | Staff must know who to go to and what happens next. ‘Tell a manager’ is not a safeguarding process. |
| ✓ | Training for all relevant staff | Awareness-level training for anyone who has contact with the public. Deeper training for the DSL and senior leads. |
| ✓ | A recording system | Concerns must be documented, dated, and stored securely. Not on a sticky note. Not in someone’s head. |
| ✓ | Regular review and refresh | Policies and training should be reviewed at least annually and whenever legislation or statutory guidance changes. |
The Care Act 2014 statutory guidance and Working Together to Safeguard Children 2026 both set out detailed frameworks for what good looks like. They are written for statutory agencies, but the underlying principles apply to any organisation that takes its safeguarding responsibilities seriously.
A Direct Word for Employers
If you run a business with public footfall and you don’t have a named safeguarding lead, a written policy, or a clear process for staff to follow when they identify a concern, that is a gap. Not one to panic about, but one you need to close.
Training your staff is part of the answer. But only part. The training has to sit within a framework that gives it somewhere to go. A member of staff who raises a concern and finds nothing on the other end of it will not raise the next one. That is how concerns go unacted on. That is how vulnerable people fall through the gap.
You do not need to be a care provider to take this seriously. You need to have contact with the public.
| Safeguarding training from Prima Cura We deliver safeguarding awareness training for businesses across all sectors, not just care. Whether you need awareness-level training for your frontline staff or a more detailed programme for your designated lead, we can help. Our training is built around your sector and your setting. Find out more about our Safeguarding Adults and Children Awareness training, or get in touch to talk through what your organisation needs. We’re happy to discuss in-house options if you’re training a whole team. |
The information in this article is intended for general awareness only. It does not constitute legal advice and should not be relied upon as a substitute for professional legal guidance or formal safeguarding training. Legislation and statutory guidance are subject to change. While every effort has been made to ensure accuracy at the time of publication, you should always refer to current legislation and consult your legal advisers or relevant statutory bodies for guidance specific to your organisation and sector.
