A damning report by the Care Quality Commission watchdog revealed that many elderly people in care homes and hospitals are being neglected particularly in the area of dignity and respect.
The recently released report, based on 13,000 CQC inspections carried out last year, found that 10% of NHS hospitals and 15% of care homes failed to treat elderly people with sufficient dignity and respect.
Too many doctors, nurses and care home staff see patients not as people but as tasks to be completed. A growing number of elderly patients are denied help to eat and drink and are being robbed of their privacy because care homes are struggling to cope.
The report said that ‘A lack of dignity and respect is a persistent issue and one that has been hard to shift,’.
The report suggested that where ‘staff are stretched’ standards slip and 3 quarters of nursing homes failed to train staff correctly. CQC chief executive David Behan said there was a culture in places that were struggling, where the “unacceptable becomes the norm”.
Dignity is the single biggest challenge to good practice in health and social care. Dignity should be at the centre of all care activities and defines a good care service.
NCC Home Learning’s Dignity and Respect Course explores dignity issues and looks at what care workers can do to provide a dignified service.
This distance learning programme is beneficial to people working in a range of care settings, for example, nursing homes, care homes, domiciliary agencies or day services. With this home study course carers will learn how to put dignity issues at the centre of all their care activities.
To read more about this report please click the following link: Daily Mail
Nick Cooper
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