Would you want your mum's care workers to be treated like criminals?
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Version 0 of 1. "Old age," as Bette Davis said, "is not for sissies." In this country, it certainly isn't. It's bad enough to have to deal with the aches and pains, the failing sight, and hearing, and the often failing mind. It's bad enough to have to deal with the worry about how you're going to keep yourself fed, clothed and warm. But the normal worries of old age seem like a luxury next to the worries many now face: that the people meant to be looking after them will be cruel. We know, because we've seen it on TV, that people who are employed to look after people who are weak can treat them in a way they wouldn't treat a dog. We've read the reports, and heard the shocking figures. We've heard, for instance, that reports of "elder abuse" to local councils have gone up nearly 30% in a year. That's not "elder neglect", which would be quite bad enough, but real, horrible, deliberate abuse. So you can see why Andrea Sutcliffe, the new chief inspector of social care, might think the answer was to put up hidden cameras. She said in an interview this morning that "we absolutely need to do something about those services where care is unacceptable". Well, yes. "Poor care", to use the jargon the health service loves and which makes being looked after sound like something that happens on a conveyor belt, is always "unacceptable". Of course the Care Quality Commission, which hasn't always done a brilliant job at spotting and acting on "poor care", ought to start doing it now. But with <em>hidden cameras</em>? Like, you know, a prison? A man from something called Big Brother Watch was worried that the "covert surveillance" would be "an attack on the privacy and dignity" of the residents of the homes. And it would. Bad enough to have your bottom wiped by a stranger, but to have your bottom being wiped by a stranger recorded, and watched by a bored official longing for his fag break, is an awful lot worse. But nobody seemed to give a thought to the "privacy and dignity" of the people looking after them. Come and work in a care home! Be paid the minimum wage! And be treated like a criminal. If we want people to do their jobs well, we really can't treat them like this. If we want people to be kind and caring and treat other people with respect, we need to treat them with respect too. And if we want people to do their jobs well we have to show them how to do their jobs well, and give them a proper training, and a better wage. At a recent conference at the University of Surrey on the ethics of social care, I heard about a project in Belgium. People working in care homes were sent to a "care ethics lab" to be looked after for a day and a night. Some were in wheelchairs. All waited, as you do have to wait if you're 80 and can't walk, to be put in a hoist and washed, or clothed, or fed. And all found that it had a massive effect on the way they did their work. "I felt hideous," said one British manager of a care home who tried the programme. "I didn't feel clean enough. Meals were the only thing to look forward to, but I ended up overfed." It was, she said, the best training she'd had in 12 years. "I think," she said, "it needs to be mandatory." I think so too. If you have a taste of what it's like to be looked after, you don't need to be told to ask, as Sutcliffe now tells her staff they should, "is it good enough for my mum?" You'd know if it was good enough for your mum. You'd know if it was good enough for you. If we're lucky, we all get old. If we're lucky, we get looked after by someone who has a little bit of understanding about what it's like to be old. There's so much we could do to make things better for old people in this country, but let's ditch the cameras and start with this. Our editors' picks for the day's top news and commentary delivered to your inbox each morning. |