November 16, 2009
Caring for the elderly should become a recognised profession and be recommended to school leavers as a rewarding career to meet the demand for higher standards in homes, ministers will be told tomorrow.
Dame Joan Bakewell, the Government-appointed adviser on old age, says she has been taken aback by the level of concern among elderly people about standards of care in their own homes and in residential establishments.
In her first annual report as the official Voice of Older People, she contrasts the “happy, smiling faces of people attractively dressed and enjoying each other’s company” on the marketing literature of care providers with what she hears from thousands of elderly people.
“There is clearly a problem of monitoring the service being provided,” Dame Joan says in the report, which is published today. “It is clear that many people do not know what recourse they have when there are lapses, what redress they can expect and, indeed, many fear that they will be victimised if they are known to complain.”
The Government is attempting to address public concern about standards of care for elderly people and has indicated that it will bring forward plans to overhaul the system. The super-regulator, the Care Quality Commission, has also announced that it wants to change the way care homes are inspected.
Dame Joan says she believes that England will eventually have to establish a statutory commissioner for older people in the same way as Wales and, soon, Northern Ireland.
She says there is a danger that various national and local authorities and institutions cannot keep up with the multitude of problems thrown up by the ageing population.
Abridged
SOURCE: TimesOnline
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