Report demands law to protect elderly people in hospitals and care homes

A catalogue of abuse: report demands law to protect elderly in hospitals and care homes - Guardian

Extract:

"Vulnerable elderly people are being subjected to neglect, abuse, discrimination and ill-treatment in the hospitals and care homes that should be looking after them, according to a report published today by a parliamentary committee.

The study by the joint committee on human rights warns that many older people are facing maltreatment ranging from physical neglect so severe they are left lying in their own faeces or urine to malnutrition and dehydration through lack of help with eating.

Lack of dignity, especially for personal care needs, inappropriate medication designed more to subdue patients than treat them, and over-hasty discharge from hospital are also causing suffering for many older people, the MPs and peers conclude.

The report, the most high-level to date to highlight disturbing levels of neglect and abuse of the elderly in Britain, argues that the law should be strengthened to compel hospitals and care homes to protect the human rights of older people in their care.

The committee says that "an entire culture change" is needed to ensure that patients and staff who work with them are aware of their basic human rights. While there have been some recent signs of progress in policy and guidance, the rhetoric has not translated into practice on the ground, the report concludes.

It criticises the Department of Health and Ministry of Justice for failing to give leadership and guidance to providers of health and residential care. While overt age discrimination has reduced in hospitals and care homes, it still persists "in more subtle and indirect ways than in the past", says the report, which also criticises government moves to allow organisations to investigate complaints against them themselves.

The committee chairman, Andrew Dismore, said: "Neglect and ill-treatment of the elderly is a severe abuse of human rights. It is a serious betrayal of trust by the very people upon whom older people depend for care." Charities strongly backed the study, branding the treatment of elderly people in some hospitals and care homes scandalous and shameful."

The human rights of thousands of elderly people are not being acknowledged in hospitals and care homes

Elderly 'are being denied human rights' - Observer

Extracts:

"Basic human rights of thousands of elderly people are failing to be acknowledged in hospitals and care homes, an influential parliamentary committee will conclude next week.

MPs and peers on the Joint Committee on Human Rights will call on health managers and carers to be more sensitive to the needs of the elderly. Andrew Dismore, Labour chairman of the committee, said: 'The Human Rights Act is not just about terrorists and criminals. It is also about ordinary people's rights in the way that they are dealt with by public bodies.'

The plight of elderly people in care was highlighted last week by a woman of 103 who was forced to leave a nursing home in a row over funding. Esme Collins, from Worksop, Nottinghamshire, who needs 24-hour nursing care, moved to a new home 10 miles away.

The spectacle of a centenarian having to move home has prompted the government to pledge a change in the law. At the moment elderly people whose care home fees are paid by a local authority - a portion of Mrs Collins's fees are paid this way - are not covered by the Human Rights Act."

"The committee will touch on many issues examined in The Observer's Dignity at Home campaign, which calls for elderly people to be allowed to live in comfort in their own homes."