An Open Letter To Our Government During The Covid 19 Crisis

LONDON - April 8, 2020 - PRLog -- This is an appeal on behalf of the 410,000 vulnerable adults resident in UK nursing or care homes to ask that The UK Government act now.

In addition to the plethora of abuse reported in the media, independent research has found abuse and preventable neglect is present in 9 out of 10 of the UK's 11,300 care and nursing homes.  If no action is taken, the government is knowingly allowing over 369,000 of our most vulnerable individuals to be subjected to a life of abuse and neglect.

This treatment would not be tolerated in any other setting!
Care Campaign for the Vulnerable and our 65,000 supporters, including care professionals, appeal to you, to help prevent it happening in care homes.

If the 83,616 prison inmates were being abused in 90% of the UK's 150 prisons, there would be an outcry. So why are we allowing it to happen to a population six times larger?

Safeguarding agencies, the CQC, CCG and LA safeguarding continuously and repeatedly fail to notice or act on documented abuse and family /residents complaints.
This behaviour is facilitated by UK law, as this regularly strips vulnerable adults in residential care of any protection or rights via DOL's. With no access to human rights and denied residential rights, if they (or their family) complain, they can be evicted.

The care home sector is worth around £15.9 billion a year in the UK. Yet, without legislation, the risk of our most vulnerable treated as a mere business commodity has been repeatedly illustrated.
Ethical norms become suspended when one group is given power over the lives of others without the risk of consequences, and as evidenced, the unacceptable becomes the norm.

The risk to the vulnerable is now even more critical and CARE CAMPAIGN FOR THE VULNERABLE appeal to the Government to act immediately to put protective measures in all care and nursing homes.

Additionally, due to Coronavirus, the CQC has ceased its inspections, the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman are not accepting new complaints, and worryingly against current government advice, it is being used as an excuse to ban families from visiting their loved ones.

The government has pledged £2.9bn to care for the most vulnerable; this must include those forgotten heroes with no voice.

Please act now to insist care home residents have at least the same safety monitoring (CCTV) protection prisoners are afforded and legislate that CCTV is immediately required in all residential and nursing homes to ensure the vulnerable are treated with dignity and respect and our carers carry out their daily tasks also by being safeguarded/protected.

(Details of sources for all of the above figures are available from http://www.CareCampaignForTheVulnerable.com  )