Parliament To Debate Care Home Horrors

The horrors some people have faced in Calderdale care homes has prompted Halifax Labour MP Linda Riordan to table an emergency motion in Parlia-ment today to highlight the issue.

“I am putting the owners of failing private care and nursing homes on notice, that I will do all I can to campaign for a tightening of the law to help stamp out this abuse. And we must look again at including these people under the Human Rights Act to protect those most at risk here on our own doorstep,” she said.

Mrs Riordan said the problems in Calderdale care homes, originally highlighted by the Courier, were shocking. They were put under the spotlight in a recent TV documentary. The BBC Panorama programme highlighted alle-ged incidents of abuse and neglect in three homes and reinforced the paper’s dem-ands for a public inquiry.

“But it would be wrong to tar all homes with the same brush,” said Pat Asquith, who runs the Pennine Lodge care home in Todmorden. “Most provide a good level of care and it is unfair to label them all as sub-standard.”

Mrs Asquith said the programme would have left some people needing residential care frightened and she complained to the programme makers about the lack of balance.

Calderdale Council said much had changed and it had set up a telephone helpline for people with concerns. A spokesman said: “Standards of care for older people are paramount in Calderdale and any abuse is totally unacceptable.”

Panorama focused on the plight of Lily Leatham and Agnes Moore, who were residents at Laurel Bank, Irene Hoyle, who was at Heath Bank and Arthur Burton who, until recently, was at The Haven, Rastrick.

A whistleblower who worked at Laurel Bank told of the “mental torture” and “abuse” of residents she had witnessed.

All three homes have been under the scrutiny of the Commission for Social Care Inspection, which last May began proceedings to close The Haven.