Education
Keith Brown MBE, an emeritus professor at Bournemouth University.
Published: January 3, 2025 | Updated: 3rd January 2025
Keith Brown has been awarded an MBE in the New Year’s Honours List for services to adult safeguarding and fraud and scams prevention.
An expert in social work and the prevention of financial scams targeting vulnerable adults, Keith worked at Bournemouth University from 1994 until his retirement in 2020 and retains an emeritus position at the university.
While there, he led the National Centre for Post Qualifying Social Work, supporting many students in furthering their social work education.
Keith also served as independent chair of the NHS Safeguarding Adults National Network during the Covid-19 pandemic, intervening to ensure that blanket ‘do not resuscitate’ orders were not placed on residents in care homes.
He was part of the team that developed vaccine protocols for care home residents and vulnerable people.
Where Keith is best known, though, is in the field of fraud prevention, as a founding member of the Financial Vulnerability Taskforce to help lead the response of the National Trading Standards scams team.
His work led to the development of the Banking Protocol which is used by all UK banks and building societies to notify the police and prevent vulnerable people from being escorted into banks to fraudulently withdraw funds.
He also led the national campaign for reimbursement of funds to victims of fraud, which has subsequently become standard banking policy.
On his newly awarded MBE, Professor Brown said: “I’m really thrilled to have received this honour.
“It represents years of work within this field that was facilitated and initially undertaken while I worked at Bournemouth University.
“I hope that members of my team at the time, and indeed the wider university community, can be proud that we’ve been able to make such a significant and important contribution to preventing and reducing the impact of fraud and scams in vulnerable adults in the UK.”
Keith retains positions on a number of national boards and councils, including chairing the Safeguarding Adults National Network, the Worcestershire Safeguarding Adults Board and the West of Berkshire Safeguarding Adults Board.
