'Shameful' care homes exposed

One in five care homes are failing to meet minimum standards of dignity for older people, according to MPs and peers.

Parliament's joint committee on human rights warned of "disturbing evidence" of maltreatment, neglect, abuse and unfair eviction of care home residents.

Calling for a complete "culture change", the committee accused the Department of Health and the Ministry of Justice for failing to give adequate leadership to care providers.

In a report published on Wednesday, the committee warned that current laws were failing to protect older people, with many patients and NHS staff unaware of their human rights.

"In our view, elder abuse is a serious and severe human rights abuse which is perpetrated on vulnerable older people who often depend on their abusers to provide them with care," it said.

"Not only is it a betrayal of trust, it would also, in certain circumstances, amount to a criminal offence.''

The report also raised concerns over planned reforms which would mean the healthcare inspectorate would be unable to look into individual complaints.

And it said all care homes - currently excluded from human rights legislation because they are not defined as public authorities - should be brought under the Human Rights Act.

Human rights

The latest figures show that some 79 per cent of care homes met the national minimum standards for privacy and dignity, introduced over three years ago. This leaves 21 per cent failing to meet the required standard.

"Neglect and ill treatment of the elderly is a severe abuse of human rights," said committee chairman Andrew Dismore. "It is a serious betrayal of trust by the very people upon whom older people depend for care."

Dismore said that the Human Rights Act often "empowers" vulnerable public service users, ensuring they "obtain decent treatment in the face of inherently unresponsive organisations".

But he added that "since it became law seven years ago, it has become a tick box exercise for lawyers, rather than becoming the lever to improve the delivery of services and, in particular, to ensure elderly people are treated decently".

"I look forward to the day when I walk into a hospital or care home and when I see the usual sign about the staff having the right to be treated with dignity and respect, there is added on to it 'and so do you, the patients and relatives' – or better still, it's the other way around," Dismore said.

Failure

The Conservatives said the report highlighted a failure of the government's policy.

Shadow health minister Stephen O’Brien said: "This government must stop neglecting the social care sector and some of the most vulnerable people in our society.

"Going on Gordon Brown's dismal record so far, I fear that even the severity of this damning report will not give Labour the rocket it needs to help elderly people in care."

And Liberal Democrat committee member Dr Evan Harris said the inquiry "uncovered a litany of failure to respect the rights of older people and give them equal treatment".

"The Human Rights Act must cover care homes and it is a scandal that seven years and several legal cases down the line, the government's failure to legislate to make this clear has left vulnerable people in state-funded care at the mercy of commercial decisions," he said.

Help the Aged said the report had "lifted the lid on the shameful treatment of our older citizens by health and care services".

Head of public affairs Kate Jopling called on the government to take urgent action to protect people's human rights and ban "the age discrimination that blights older people's lives".

"Far from tending to the needs of the most vulnerable, too often, these services fail to even respect older people's most basic human rights," she said.

"The report rightly calls for new legal protections for older people – to make sure they are treated with dignity and respect. Surely the shocking examples highlighted by this report provide all the evidence this government needs to justify urgent action to remedy the situation."