News

Care Campaign for the Vulnerable held a meeting in Westminster with Dr Rosena Allin Khan MP who told of the horrific experience she endured while her father was in a care assisted residence. Finding her father severly bruised and with blood on him she had no explanation to how these injuries occured and worst still, the attitude from authorities and the Provider equally as shocking.

The MP now supports our quest to see CCTV safety monitoring in communal areas and private rooms with consent as well as an independent reporting solution so families and care staff wanting to report care concerns can do so without fear of retribution. We are delighted to gain the MP's support and hopeful her influence will bring much needed positive change within the sector. https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1105435/care-home-abuse-victim-scandal-mp-demands-end-cover-up/amp

Care Campaign for the Vulnerable statement

CCFTV is pleased that Dr Rosina Allin-Khan is calling for much greater transparency in the care sector. Her own recent tragic experience relating to injuries her father sustained whilst living in a care home, is one very many families have had to accept for years. The MP failed to get an adequate explanation as to the cause of her father's serious injuries and indeed was made to feel as if her concerns were without merit when she questioned what had happened.

It is simply shocking that in the age of technology, older vulnerable people living in care homes, many of whom have no capacity to articulate their concerns personally, continue to sustain injuries that remain unexplained. Families are simply distraught when a loved one is hurt and naturally in the absence of evidence, wonder if harm has been caused wilfully, or as a result of an act of negligence or even as usually asserted, a simple accident. If the latter was true, in the absence of camera safety monitoring, how do providers actually know that and how do they reassess risk to ensure accidents are not repeated? Families just want to be sure that a loved one is well cared for, respected and safe and secure in a homely environment.

We are delighted therefore to fully support Dr Allin-Khan’s call for CCTV monitoring in communal areas and bedrooms with the appropriate consent. It is long overdue. We believe the presence of visual evidence would improve trust and confidence between providers and families. We also agree that families should have the option to report a concern to an independent complains/concerns commissioner for the purposes of a detailed and full response. It is not appropriate for care providers to pay lip service to family complaints or indeed at the more extreme end to unilaterally decide a family are vexatious complainants and issue 30 day placement termination notices. Trotting out the usual platitude of “our top priority remains the welfare of our residents’ but failing to adopt safety monitoring rings very hollow.

It is our hope however that via the use of safety monitoring any resident incident will be recorded, ensuring the facts are indisputable. Family and provider can then work together thereafter to ensure any remedy is in the residents best interest.