Social workers should be able to break into homes to check old people are not being abused, say ministers
By Steve Doughty and Sophie Borland
16th October 2008
Ministers want social workers to have power to break into homes to check vulnerable people are not being abused.
Social workers should have the power to break into homes to check that elderly and vulnerable people are not being harmed by their children, ministers have said.
New laws should also give them the right to remove old people who are at risk from their homes - even if they do not want to go.
The sweeping powers for social workers to enter homes and break up families are part of a package of measures recommended by the Government to improve the protection for vulnerable adults who are abused by their relatives or by those who look after them.
There would also be fresh rules for banks, building societies and the City regulator, the Financial Services Authority.
But some charities said the plans, published in a consultation paper on Thursday, did not go far enough.
Gary Fitzgerald of Action on Elder Abuse said: 'These plans will not ensure older people and other adults at risk of abuse get the sort of protection available to children, people experiencing domestic violence, or even animals.
'The Government cannot afford to get this wrong.'
Charities say older people already lose tens of millions of pounds a year in cash and possessions to thieves within their own families.
Plans for new laws come at a time when the Government is already facing embarrassment over earlier legislation which was intended to give greater safeguards to the elderly and ill.
Under the Mental Capacity Act - which gives legal force to living wills - a new system for transferring bank accounts from older people who are losing their mental faculties to their families was brought in.
However the complexity of the new law has meant long delays and anguish for families needing to get access to bank accounts to pay for care and care home places.
SOURCE: Daily Mail, UK
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