Care, cruelty and commissions
Sorry, folks. Some weeks I simply can’t rise to light-hearted banter. And I’m feeling mightily churned up about this one.
Did you watch the BBC Panorama programme on the atrocious cruelty and abuse taking place in the Castlebeck Care residential hospital for young adults with learning disabilities and autism near Bristol? I had every intention of doing so but, I confess, I was a coward. I had to switch off part way through; it was simply too sickening to observe. How relatives, never mind the abused victims, feel is beyond my comprehension. And this was but the tip of the iceberg: the whistleblower said, ‘Human rights were violated every day.’
Since the programme was aired, the papers, TV and radio have been full of it and other stories like it. And I make no apology for adding my mite. It’s too big to ignore.
It transpires that the story behind that BBC exposé is equally shocking. The abuses were reported repeatedly to management and to the Care Quality Commission. And nothing – absolutely nothing – was done about them. I personally know of homes where the residents are being lovingly cared for, but the Commission officers haul the staff over the coals for failing to document things adequately. How can this discrepancy exist? What are the guidelines, regulations and policies all about?
Now these particular violations are public, of course, there’s the usual wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth, a rash of promises, apologies and threats. And the sheer scale of the abuse means it will have shocked people into taking notice this time. But will the contrition last? Or will blind eyes still be turned? When greedy investors see a chance for a fast buck (the authorities were paying an average of £3,500 a week at the Bristol establishment)? When homes ‘cannot afford’ to hire suitably qualified and motivated staff? When the authorities ‘cannot cope’ with policing the homes they’re designed to regulate?
Because this isn’t an isolated case. Reports have been and are still being compiled. We’ve already heard about one young man who actually died following habitual restraint at another Castlebeck establishment in 2006. About residents being allowed to virtually starve. About frail and disabled folk being left in their own excrement. About doctors feeling compelled to prescribe water to ensure elderly patients get that most basic of humane provisions. About dozens of homes being closed, hundreds of carers losing their jobs.
You’d have to be living in deepest darkest isolation not to know we’ve got a massive demographic problem on our hands. Too many elderly and disabled people needing care. Local authorities cutting their contributions to residential homes. And the numbers still rising as medicine improves and people live longer. I don’t have the answers. There is no one-size-fits-all solution. But almost every family will face difficult decisions about care at some stage in their lives. And irrespective of our personal involvement we surely can’t just stand by when appalling abuses are being meted out to society’s most vulnerable citizens. The Scottish Government have this week pledged, in this their second term of office, to rise to the challenge of driving up standards in the face of financial restrictions. What form this resolve will take we don’t know yet, but time will tell.
And in the meantime it behoves us all to think long and hard about what kind of a society we want for our most vulnerable citizens. And to stand up and be counted. As Confucius said: To know what is right and not do it is the worst cowardice.
IVF – a luxury or a right? Honour killing
I watched this programme on i-player and felt totally sickened.
It’s right that the bullies and the cowards will face charges but I think there is a good case for the Care Quality Commission to be facing corporate charges of GROSS NEGLIGENCE as well. To dismiss their failure to act on complaints made by a senior nurse, on THREE occasions, as “a misjudgment”, is incredible. To then bleat that they saw no signs of abuse being carried out when they made their ANNOUNCED visit, beggars belief.
That the Scottish Care Comission (there’s a misonomer)is as spineless and toothless as its’ English counterpart is one of the reasons I left nursing. Is it that they couldn’t or wouldn’t act? It certainly seemed to be the case that paperwork would always take precedence over people.Unfortunately, because of the existence of bodies like these, people assume that SOMEONE is looking out for the needs of the most vulnerable and so are lulled into a false sense of security and assume that all is well in institutional care when the reality is far from the case.
We all know that the MAJORITY of carers are good people, doing a difficult job, for a pittance. But who is monitoring the minority? Particularly the minority who are working, upsupervised, in the community? The answer to that question makes me shudder…..
Thank you, Clare, for drawing attention to the majority who provide excellent care. I’ve attended conferences and visited homes and watched carers in action and been awed by the dedication and commitment and love I’ve seen in action. It would be an appalling thing if elderly or disabled people and their relatives became afraid to enter residential care because of the behaviour of the minority.
You, it seems, are another casualty of the deficient system monitoring care. We need your voice of experience and the voice of many many more to clamour for change. Thank you for speaking up today. Hazel