To be treated with respect and dignity. This is the most basic of Human Rights.
Yet hundreds of Britain’s elderly citizens are denied this. The Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI) recently published a shocking report.
The report, Rights, Risks and Restraints, is based on a survey of 253 older people and their carers and an analysis of complaints and official inspection reports.
Charities for the elderly are united in saying that abuse in the care sector is widespread.
75% of those surveyed said they, or someone they knew, had been restrained. Some old people are left incontinent. Others receive the briefest of visits and spend long hours alone.
This suggests that private care companies are breaking their contracts with local councils. If true, millions of pounds – paid out of our taxes – are being scandalously squandered.
Many of us were horrified by the recent Panorama programme Britain’s Homecare Scandal. This investigation, across different counties, showed that abuse was directly linked to profit.
Some local authorities are using “reverse auctions” to award their contracts, with the business going to the lowest bidder. Panorama alleged that a care company based in Scotland was paid £9.95 an hour. This company provided care for Andy Wilson.
Mr. Wilson is, 78, unable to walk, hard of hearing and blind in one eye. He was shown by Panorama to be left alone for 14 hours on Christmas day. The Times newspaper further claimed that he had not been bathed or showered for 6 months.
The Government has to do more to ensure that such breaches of trust do not occur. With an ageing population, elderly people must be a top political priority.
Councils need to honour their duty of care to everyone. Old people have to be included in our society. They should not feel a nuisance or exception.
Carers also need to be treated with understanding. They should be given a decent wage. Whistle-blowers who expose intolerable working conditions and bad employers should be further protected.
Most important of all, the selling out of old people to the lowest contract bidder must be stopped. It is horrifying that the vulnerable and voiceless are exploited for financial profit. This is a sickness in our health service that needs curing fast.
Isn’t this just yet another failure of inspection and enforcement? I hope that the Westminster government doesn’t just rush through yet another new law to fix something that doesn’t require yet more legislation.
Maybe this shows an unresolvable conflict of interest between the need of a company to maximize profit and the a modern society’s need to ensure a fair treatment of their elderly.
Nick: Considering the horrors that also existed when such care was wholly within the public sector I’m deeply dubious that it’s such a neat explanation. Indeed we have had a number of whistle-blowers in hospitals in recent times showing pretty awful treatment of the elderly there so I find it an unpersuasive argument that somehow removing the reverse auction and presumably bringing it back in house would remove the problem. It’s about enforcing the standards of care not the type of provider. I do agree whistle-blowers need more protection – most obviously from their own ‘judge and jury’ professional bodies.
Only having read the media coverage so there may be details better explained I’ve missed but 253 people is a tiny sample size for statistical purposes.
Well, as unpopular as this will sound in ever-secular modern society, I suppose the problem is one of our culture.
we have bred for 40 or 50 years now a Culture that is indolent, selfish, and greedy, and that puts the pursuit of material gain and immediate pleasure above duty, honour, and loyalty, and respect for others has been replaced by an exaggerated sense of one sown self esteem.
The real problem lies in ourselves, and I quiet agree that more legislation will not fix the problem. The Problem is that we have become rather uncaring as a people, and need to once again learn the lessons form our great Spiritual traditions, namely the Church, whose role in British society historically as a moral voiuce has eroded over time.
The Lessons of Christianity, And other Religious groups, to note, once permeated our culture, and though we never where perfect and always endured some social abuses, generated in us a sort of attitude that let us not take ourselves too seriously and that enabled us to set others needs in a place ahead of our own quiet a bit more often.
Of course today we are told how horrible Religion is and how it leads to division, hatred, and intolerance. I think that rubbish. We are more hateful and divided now than ever before, and far less kind.
The solution to moral problems is moral teaching, and for people to internalise the lessons on how to love one another, and place greater value on service to others than to self gratification.
To this end, I say that what is needed is for us to recover our past values, and not press ahead with new legislation.
They did, after all, have a proven track record of making the British people characteristically polite and considerate at one time.
As I said, never where we perfect nor where all people always kind, but this is the solution, personal responsibility and inner, Spiritual regeneration, on a personal and civil level.
I would say that the selling out of any public service to the lowest contract bidder should be stopped. So many privatised service contracts are given out in the midst of a confusion of best value and best price.
James Schlackman – the problem isn’t taking the lowest price, the problem is that those who award the contracts either don’t write the contracts with a thought towards ensuring quality, or don’t enforce the quality conditions. Based on my experience with NHS complaints, I’d also guess that the contracts (and the arrangements in general) don’t allow the people who are receiving the services to complain in any meaningful way.
My guess is that the problem is caused because the people who award the contracts are in jobs where bonuses are paid if they meet certain financial targets and with little regard for the quality of the service provided. That, and laziness. If you were in a situation like that, why would you worry about anything other than price?
As I tried to get at above, I think that we should focus on the morality of the issue from a moral point of view.
If we’d award contracts not just to the lowest bidder, but also took steps to look into the moral Character of those so employed by said agencies, and followed up with routine inspections of how they execute treatment, then a ;lot of this would not be an issue.
Of course, those who inspect must themselves be morally developed as well, hence why I’d suggest the problem is mainly within ourselves.
We need to encourage people to behave in a more considerate fashion towards each other, and to enforce this in the NHS and other agencies by deliberately looking at peoples moral Character.
The idea that we should separate someones moral Character from their work performance is just nonsense. How people are directly ties into how they perform.
If said agency is run by people who simply want the contracts to build their own bank accounts and who don’t care one wit about the patients they serve, they do not deserve the contract, lowest bidder or not.
I think the government could step in here if they were to look again at the definition of a public authority under the Human Rights Act – I know the Daily Mail hates everything human rights but the Act is best placed to protect elderly people in this situation
ade, If only the Government would check in, but this also seems to lag behind.
Thank you for all your responses.
Alfred, Nick and Zarove – I agree that there is no one particular cause for this terrible problem.
The Government should make sure that existing assessment procedures and complaint channels work. Improvements need to be made to the current system but I do not believe that reckless and hasty changes will help.
The issue of private companies making a profit out of people’s misery needs to be addressed. I agree with Croft, though, such problems are not restricted to the private sector. Often, staff and patients in the public sector have to contend with an overload of patients and limited resources.
Finally, Zarove, I do not think that you are behind the times when you say that this is a problem of culture. Our attitude towards elderly people should be one of respect. Too often, elderly people are made to feel a nuisance and a burden. A re-emphasis on building up the family unit would help this.
However, sometimes, it is sadly impossible to care for elderly relatives in the family home. Sometimes specialist medical assistance and 24 hour supervision is necessary.
So what is the next step? I believe that an apolitical, independent enquiry and investigation examining care of the elderly across Britain in both the public and private sectors is needed. I agree, Croft, Rights, Risks and Restraints only looks at a small percentage of cases but the results are deeply troubling and hint that such suffering is widespread.
Whilst I appreciate the media giving voice to this issue and highlighting the problems, I do not believe it should be their responsibility to carry out investigations. Parliament needs to take the issue of elderly care far more seriously.