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The redoubtable campaigner Erin Pizzey, famous for her action on domestic violence, has now taken up the cudgels. She argues that abuse of the elderly has a terrible habit of being kept quiet: ‘It is a bit like domestic violence amongst the middle classes–no one ever talked about it, although people knew it was going on…If baby-boomers don’t start kicking ass now about elder abuse, this will be their future–and they are a generation who are used to their freedoms. Tackling elder abuse requires a revolution–a grey revolution.’*
We know human beings are often very abusive to people who are in their care. We understand that there is a risk, but our way of dealing with it is to add layer upon layer of regulation and inspection rather than to encourage the opening up of institutions such as care homes and nursing homes so that ordinary people can come and go frequently, as part of daily life. Whether those in care are children, older people, people with enduring mental illness or learning disabilities, or even prisoners, cruelty can often well up from the depths of the human personality. We know it well enough from all the inquiries into abuse in large institutions. Abuse occurs wherever vulnerability exists. If we have strong legislation to protect the vulnerability of animals, why not for older people also? But legislation needs to go hand in hand with opening up institutions, for openness is far more likely to breed an atmosphere of trust than any system of regulation and inspection.
Fear of abuse has been further exacerbated by the chaos surrounding care and nursing homes, particularly, though not exclusively, in the south and west of England. With the rise in property prices nursing home and care home owners find it difficult to maintain standards and get staff. One by one, homes have been closing. The result is that older people who moved–often unwillingly–into nursing and residential care find themselves with nowhere to go when they are at their frailest and most desperate. Though this is not abuse as such, it is a form of mistreatment that beggars belief. Many professionals suspect that many old people attempt suicide because their future in such circumstances is so bleak.
Abuse exists in the NHS sector as well, as the CHI (Commission for Health Improvement) report into conditions in Rowan Ward of the Manchester Mental Health and Social Care Trust made clear. There was abuse, an inward-looking culture, low staffing levels, high use of agency staff, poor supervision and appalling management.* The report, which came after complaints of abuse of older patients by staff, found amongst other things: a ward left physically isolated when other services were moved to more modern premises elsewhere; poor reporting and clinical governance procedures that failed to pick up early warnings of abuse; regimented care; ‘Patients’ clothing was changed and their hygiene needs addressed according to a schedule rather than when the need arose.’ They also found sickness rates of 9.8 per cent during 2002 among nursing staff; widespread use of mixed sex wards in the Trust’s older-age mental health services; ‘rudimentary’ performance management of staff; an aimless service; and a lack of management attention to quality of care caused by transition to care trust status.
So can the NHS do better? Its record in this area is not all that reassuring. An inquiry by the Health Advisory Service in 2000† demonstrated that older people were less satisfied with the care they received than younger people-which is surprising given that older people complain less than younger people. They experienced unacceptably long delays in admission, problems with feeding and with the physical environment, staff shortages, privacy and dignity, communication with staff, and, most profoundly, with staff attitudes towards older people. The recommendations were lengthy, but the most significant was that everyone-patients, relatives, and staff-has to take on responsibility for challenging negative attitudes about old age, about prospects for recovery, and about worth. So if the NHS has problems of this sort, will voluntary organizations take on the provision of care homes? Many already do, particularly those that are religiously or ethnically based. The mess in care home provision has come about as a result of inadequate planning and a cross-party agreement to shift the burden of care to the private sector. But the position is untenable. The risks of abuse would not be not hugely improved, and feelings of insecurity would remain.
An inquiry into the care market in London currently being carried out by the King’s Fund shows that there are still concerns about a number of familiar issues. For example, there is a very limited choice of care and support for older people. While there is no evidence of insufficient care home places for older Londoners, these may not always be where people want them; and there certainly is a shortage of services for older people with mental health problems such as dementia. The King’s Fund has also found that throughout London there are difficulties in recruiting and retaining nurses, social workers, therapists, and care workers. Older people’s views of services have been shown to be varied; some are very appreciative of a wide range of services, but there are widespread concerns about the quality of home care and residential care services. All of this is compounded by financial pressures, for in spite of increased government spending councils have to juggle the needs of older people with other priorities.
Though inspection of care homes has led to the uncovering of some abuse, inspection in itself is not enough: in fact the burden of inspection and regulation on an already precarious nursing and care home sector may make even more owners give up. Part of the answer lies in allowing ordinary people to visit older people in nursing or care homes, as part of a daily or weekly routine. However, the Better Regulation Task Force, a government body, warned that vital care services were being withdrawn precisely because of inflexible ‘no touch’ rules stopping volunteers taking older and disabled people to the bathroom or feeding them.* Indeed, volunteers, often in their sixties or seventies themselves, the so-called Third Agers, are now often subjected to the same training requirements for a few hours of help as professional care workers. The report was the work of a committee chaired by Sukhvinder Stubbs, who argued that small local agencies who work with volunteers are being affected by ‘silly regulation, bonkers regulation’. But the issue is really about the level of risk service users want to accept-for instance, the extent to which they want to be able to choose the temperature of their own bath water.
In the present climate we are automatically suspicious of people wanting to visit nursing homes and care homes on a casual, uninvited basis. Who are they? Are they would-be abusers? Are they after the older people’s money? Yet this attitude of mistrust, and the now ubiquitous fear of risk, may well be leading to a greater degree of isolation for residents. The more we close off institutions, the less we know what is going on within them, the easier it is for abuse to take place and for the residents to feel isolated, hopeless, and forgotten. Some system whereby lonely older people get visited on a regular basis needs to be taken up by a whole variety of organizations, from schools and colleges to churches and mosques, from Townswomen’s Guilds to Working Men’s Clubs. This sense of isolation, and the fear that taking an interest in older people will be seen as perverse, must stop.
A few schemes exist, such as the excellent British Red Cross’s Home from Hospital scheme, which has some 55 initiatives operating nationwide, but many more are needed. The Red Cross model gets round the issue of strangers coming in to people’s homes because the volunteers are trained and supported and the service is paid for by local social service departments. This model of supported, trained volunteers who do it because they love it, supported by professional volunteer co-ordinators and a serious, respected organization like the Red Cross, gives older people the confidence to use the service, gives volunteers the feeling that they will not be rejected by the people they visit, since the Red Cross badge will be seen as a mark of quality and safety, and makes the system run as a truly voluntary service with rigorous quality and safety checks. Скачать книгу