Widespread neglect uncovered in care homes

A dossier compiled by Age UK and The Health Foundation says desperately sick elderly people in care homes have been left screaming in pain, with others given incorrect drugs, while families have been denied crucial information about the health of their loved ones.

The report was compiled following research showing that every day, seven out of ten care home residents are victims of drug errors, with elderly people being given the wrong medication, missing doses, and not being monitored for side effects.

I've quoted some of the most shocking findings below:

A woman who went into a care home at the age of 94 took pride in being independent, and administering her own medical care – eye drops for glaucoma, and cream and splints for arthritis.

Her family told the charities: "Her drops and her cream were taken away and locked up. Her eye drops were often forgotten, her splints and cream were rarely put on. She became withdrawn and depressed with the removal of her independence. So much so that she was prescribed antidepressants, which she repeatedly said she did not want or need."

Relatives said many staff did not have English as a first language, leading to communication problems, especially when it came to conversations about medication, increasing the risk of dangerous errors.

The 26 interviewees spoke to the charities on condition of anonymity. Several expressed fears that making complaints lead to "repercussions" for their relatives or friends behind closed doors.

"If you start asking awkward questions, you're labelled a troublemaker," said one.

Another who nevertheless spoke to the care home about concerns, recalled then being asked to visit her father less often, after being told that the visits were "disruptive" to his routine.

[Neil Duncan-Jordan, from the National Pensioners Convention] believes that the quality of care homes can only improve if they invest more in those paid to care for the elderly – and if society digs deeper, to drag up the standards of care.

"We are talking about people who can earn more working on the checkout of their local supermarket," he said. "When you have a system that has badly-paid, poorly-trained staff administering to the most vulnerable and dependent people in our society, those are the ingredients for a system to fail."

Read more at the Daily Telegraph.

Shamefully, the Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail were the only two papers that bothered to report this story.

Perhaps if you read another paper, and feel this story should have been included, you might like to write to them and suggest they improve their coverage of such an important issue.