Call for new laws to protect elderly from abuse
Charities are calling for new laws to protect the elderly as a study shows that more than 300,000 cases of abuse go undetected each year
By Laura Donnelly, Health Correspondent
31 Jan 2009
More than 50 charities, backed by England's social care watchdog, are urging the Government to put abuse of the elderly on the same legal footing as child abuse, with the NHS, councils and the police obliged to investigate any threat reported.
The submission to ministers comes ahead of a major study which will say next week that more than 90 per cent of elderly people who suffer abuse go unnoticed by social services.
The report, by the charity Action on Elder Abuse, will estimate that more than 300,000 elderly people suffer mistreatment at the hands of carers, nurses, or relatives each year, without authorities ever stepping in.
Even this number is likely to be an underestimate, as it excludes people with dementia and those in residential homes.
The moves come as families across the country are struggling to find care home places for elderly relatives due to the recession increasing pressures on the social care system.
Action on Elder Abuse investigated local authority records and found that fewer than a tenth of that number of cases are ever investigated by social services.
The charity, together with the Alzheimer's Society, Age Concern, Mencap, and the Commission for Social Care Inspection, is calling for laws to be introduced which would place a duty on all agencies which work with vulnerable adults to log and investigate reports of abuse – either in residential care or in family homes – and to share information with other agencies.
Currently, different bodies set their own rules about how to protect the frail elderly, and disabled, from harm.
The charities made the plea as part of submissions to a Government consultation on the protection of vulnerable adults, which closed yesterday.
Neil Hunt of the Alzheimer's Society added: "We need to fight any abuse of people with dementia and that means putting systems in place early to avoid putting them at risk."
In July, a care worker was found guilty of abusing five elderly residents of Manor Care Home in Ilkeston, Derbyshire.’
Nina Strange, 48, of Heanor, Derbyshire, was sentenced to 200 hours community work after a court heard how she hit an 88-year-old wheelchair-bound woman across the back of the head, twice hit an 81-year-old man on the head and pulled the hair of an 81-year-old woman as she put her to bed.
Abridged
SOURCE: The Telegraph (UK)
No comments:
Post a Comment