Safeguarding Older People from Abuse by Ash Angie

Author:Ash, Angie [Ash, Angie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Family & Relationships, Eldercare, Political Science, Public Policy, Social Services & Welfare, Social Science, Gerontology, Sociology, General
ISBN: 9781447305675
Google: bNvGCgAAQBAJ
Publisher: Policy Press
Published: 2015-10-07T05:18:13+00:00

‘Seeing’ elder mistreatment

Considering the first UK prevalence survey on the prevalence of elder abuse in the UK found Wales to have the highest reported rates of mistreatment of the four nations (O’Keefe et al, 2007), the relatively low number of adult protection referrals concerning older people in The Department was puzzling. In The Department, adult protection referral rates concerning older people were on a par with other groups of vulnerable adults. The national picture in Wales has shown older people referred more often (followed by adult protection referrals concerning people with a learning disability); and this pattern has been the case for a number of years (CSSIW, 2013). In addition, levels of adult protection referrals made by social workers in The Department were low relative to the national picture.

If social workers were making relatively few adult protection referrals this raised the question of how aware they were of elder abuse, and of the thresholds they may have used to decide if concerns were dealt with in or outside the adult protection procedures. Were social workers seeing questionable practices and behaviours but not querying these as potential mistreatment, or were they simply not seeing these practices at all?This question of ‘seeing’, and challenging abuse came to prominence in The Department when a large-scale adult protection investigation of a care home was instigated by the social care regulator (reported in Ash, 2013). This care home had been discussed by social workers and their team manager in the first focus group held at the start of the research. One social worker said of this regulated care home:“the whole place was an abuse … it was awful”. Conversations about how bad this place was were familiar topics of conversation between social workers and their colleagues in The Department, and in other agencies such as the NHS. However, as the care home was regulatorily compliant, social workers and nurses had continued to place older people there.

Social workers and nurses periodically went to this care home to carry out statutory reviews of the care plans of older people to whom they had a duty of care. During the research, some social workers spoke of their guilt in not having picked up what was, apparently, everyday life for older people, where as one described, “if a person got out of their chair because they were trying to attract the attention of someone… before they (could) say anything they were told to sit down”.

Once the adult protection alert had been raised, a large-scale adult protection investigation commenced. One Department manager said this investigation

‘… shocked a lot of people. There’s a lot of guilt around these situations. I’ve talked to nurses who say ‘I did a review there two months ago why didn’t I pick up these things?’ I’ve talked to social workers who say we’ve known for ten years (the home) is not a very great place but we’ve placed people there. There’s a lot of guilt and discomfort around that.’

These expressions of shock were puzzling, given the standard of care provided by this home was known about.

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