News

World Elder Abuse Awareness Day -15th June 2021

CARE HOME PROFESSIONAL

https://www.carehomeprofessional.com/ccftv-calls-for-abuse-of-elderly-to-be-made-a-hate-crime/

On such a reflective but yet inauspicious day for our elderly and vulnerable citizens, CCFTV laments the serious lack of progress that has been afforded to the protection of our loved ones. Another year has gone and yet if anything, the pandemic only confirmed our worse fears, that older vulnerable people are at the very bottom of a welfare pecking order. Lives have been needlessly lost over the last eighteen months as care home residents not only suffered the fatal effects of Covid but were also denied even the small pleasures of family comforts and support. We have no idea just how life was for them given the lack of oversight, the absence of independent monitoring systems and the suspension of regulator visits during lockdown periods.

Having a World Elder Abuse Day draw attention to the abuse of older people is a wonderful concept, but the reality is very different. That day comes and goes with no material change year on year. Successive governments make the right noises, say the right things then once the platitudes have been extended, go back to doing nothing. No mandatory use of monitoring systems, no answer to the social care funding crisis and no material help for primary carers and family members delivering care in an older person home. No prevention of unfair evictions, no register for carers to ensure providers are hiring professional people and no answer to the postcode lottery that families face when seeking residential care for a loved one.

Care Campaign for the Vulnerable's purpose will always be to speak out for older people. On this World Elder Abuse Day, we call on the Government to reflect with real sincerity on the urgency required to address many of these deficits. Older people don’t have the luxury of time, so on this day of all days, renew your commitment to eradicating abuse from the lives of older people by mandating providers to implement the safeguards and systems that CCFTV has been campaigning for over the last seven years.