News this week that the Care Quality Commission had to close more than 40 care homes and agencies last year to protect residents' safety was a stark reminder of what goes on behind closed doors at Britain's privately run care homes.
A further 51 shut voluntarily after the watchdog labelled them "poor," forcing around 1,600 elderly and disabled people out of their homes.The commission's findings make for grim reading.Two of the privately operated homes forced to close were owned by Anbanaden and Shamila Chellapermal, who were jailed last year for human trafficking.
The commission reported "evidence of neglect of the most basic kind" towards the vulnerable residents with dementia who were supposed to be in their care.In August the Chellapermals were also ordered to hand over around £450,000 in profits they had racked up while employing immigrants illegally in slave-like conditions, working 90 hours a week for a mere 90p an hour.
At Sherwood Lodge in Gillingham the commission reported that residents were not being given their medication and that the home's carpets were stained with blood and urine. In a single month there had been eight incidents of residents attacking each other.In Turnbull House, Birmingham, the commission found a host of failings that removed from residents their right to "independence, respect, choice and dignity." It singled out a shortage of staff as a key safety risk.
In each case the homes were either shut down or the owners did so themselves voluntarily.Home care visits also got their fair share of bad press last year thanks to a BBC Panorama undercover investigation.It found that elderly people in South Lanarkshire were being left to fend for themselves for hours due to missed or shortened home visits.
The programme filmed secretly in the home of one 78-year-old man who was left alone for 14 hours on Christmas Day and was being fed a diet of sandwiches, tinned spaghetti and Quavers crisps.At another home run by a private provider with 48 local authority contracts an 89-year-old woman had been neglected for 24 hours before she was finally found lying in her own faeces by her son.
All these incidents come back to the same thing. If profit-making companies are holding the reins the main thing they care about is how much money they can make, not how good a service they are providing. But unfortunately that lesson still has not been learned.The drastic consequences are that many socially essential services are provided on the cheap. In the case of care homes this means rip-off charges to the vulnerable residents and staff working on a slave's wage.
"A care home placement is more than a room - it is a home, a community, a place where people end their lives," says Age UK Charity Director Michelle Mitchell."Operators that have failed to provide an environment free of abuse or neglect deserve to be shut down by the CQC."And yesterday the commission finally got tougher powers to tackle this ongoing problem. A new registration law came into force to beef up the regulation of health and adult social care in England which brings the NHS, private health care and adult social care providers under the same inspection regime for the first time.
Every care service is now legally responsible for making sure that it meets essential standards of quality and safety to prevent the disastrous, disgusting situations in the past from happening again and again.And the watchdog will only licence care services that meet these essential standards and will regularly monitor each licensed provider. It will have new powers to issue warnings, fines or closures if high standards are not maintained.
Each service user will be involved with what's happening at every stage of their care, each provider will be fully staffed by qualified carers and the quality of services will be constantly checked and updated.Mitchell agrees that the commission's new powers are a positive step. But she warns that it will only have teeth if it has the resources to carry out regular inspections and intervene as soon as possible.
However the watchdog's chief executive Cynthia Bowers is adamant that it will make a difference."We did not tolerate poor care under the old registration system and we certainly will not tolerate it under the new system," she says."Services where problems have been identified can expect frequent inspections and we will use our powers where it is necessary to protect people - even if it means shutting services down."
GMB, a union which represents many of Britain's care workers, also broadly welcomed the new rules.National officer Sharon Holder is hopeful that minimum standards will improve in care homes."It will have the impact of keeping out operators who are in the business for a quick buck," she says.But only time will tell if the new legislation will deliver in the real world, especially against the backdrop of the coalition government's cuts programme.
For now, though, many of the vulnerable people housed in Britain's care homes remain little more than bound and gagged cash cows for private profit.
By Will Stone
A further 51 shut voluntarily after the watchdog labelled them "poor," forcing around 1,600 elderly and disabled people out of their homes.The commission's findings make for grim reading.Two of the privately operated homes forced to close were owned by Anbanaden and Shamila Chellapermal, who were jailed last year for human trafficking.
The commission reported "evidence of neglect of the most basic kind" towards the vulnerable residents with dementia who were supposed to be in their care.In August the Chellapermals were also ordered to hand over around £450,000 in profits they had racked up while employing immigrants illegally in slave-like conditions, working 90 hours a week for a mere 90p an hour.
At Sherwood Lodge in Gillingham the commission reported that residents were not being given their medication and that the home's carpets were stained with blood and urine. In a single month there had been eight incidents of residents attacking each other.In Turnbull House, Birmingham, the commission found a host of failings that removed from residents their right to "independence, respect, choice and dignity." It singled out a shortage of staff as a key safety risk.
In each case the homes were either shut down or the owners did so themselves voluntarily.Home care visits also got their fair share of bad press last year thanks to a BBC Panorama undercover investigation.It found that elderly people in South Lanarkshire were being left to fend for themselves for hours due to missed or shortened home visits.
The programme filmed secretly in the home of one 78-year-old man who was left alone for 14 hours on Christmas Day and was being fed a diet of sandwiches, tinned spaghetti and Quavers crisps.At another home run by a private provider with 48 local authority contracts an 89-year-old woman had been neglected for 24 hours before she was finally found lying in her own faeces by her son.
All these incidents come back to the same thing. If profit-making companies are holding the reins the main thing they care about is how much money they can make, not how good a service they are providing. But unfortunately that lesson still has not been learned.The drastic consequences are that many socially essential services are provided on the cheap. In the case of care homes this means rip-off charges to the vulnerable residents and staff working on a slave's wage.
"A care home placement is more than a room - it is a home, a community, a place where people end their lives," says Age UK Charity Director Michelle Mitchell."Operators that have failed to provide an environment free of abuse or neglect deserve to be shut down by the CQC."And yesterday the commission finally got tougher powers to tackle this ongoing problem. A new registration law came into force to beef up the regulation of health and adult social care in England which brings the NHS, private health care and adult social care providers under the same inspection regime for the first time.
Every care service is now legally responsible for making sure that it meets essential standards of quality and safety to prevent the disastrous, disgusting situations in the past from happening again and again.And the watchdog will only licence care services that meet these essential standards and will regularly monitor each licensed provider. It will have new powers to issue warnings, fines or closures if high standards are not maintained.
Each service user will be involved with what's happening at every stage of their care, each provider will be fully staffed by qualified carers and the quality of services will be constantly checked and updated.Mitchell agrees that the commission's new powers are a positive step. But she warns that it will only have teeth if it has the resources to carry out regular inspections and intervene as soon as possible.
However the watchdog's chief executive Cynthia Bowers is adamant that it will make a difference."We did not tolerate poor care under the old registration system and we certainly will not tolerate it under the new system," she says."Services where problems have been identified can expect frequent inspections and we will use our powers where it is necessary to protect people - even if it means shutting services down."
GMB, a union which represents many of Britain's care workers, also broadly welcomed the new rules.National officer Sharon Holder is hopeful that minimum standards will improve in care homes."It will have the impact of keeping out operators who are in the business for a quick buck," she says.But only time will tell if the new legislation will deliver in the real world, especially against the backdrop of the coalition government's cuts programme.
For now, though, many of the vulnerable people housed in Britain's care homes remain little more than bound and gagged cash cows for private profit.
By Will Stone
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