Elderly care is close to torture, says EHRC

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is failing to identify and stop elderly people having their basic human rights ignored, the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has said, claiming that the way the elderly are treated now meets the legal definition of torture which refers to “inhuman or degrading treatment”.

And it isn’t just the CQC that’s at fault, the commission said, claiming there are 10 areas where public bodies have failed to meet human rights standards. In particular, the EHRC blamed social services, local authorities and the police for not doing enough to tackle violence against women and child abuse in the home. Worse than that, they have even ignored reports of such abuse. The commission also defended the Human Rights Act which the Home Secretary Theresa May has said should be scrapped.

The EHRC said that elderly care was “at its most extreme, abusive, cruel and degrading” and treatment was “similar to torture”.

The commission went on: “Police sometimes failed to take seriously allegations of repeated violence that were so severe the allegations reached the threshold for inhuman and degrading treatment under Article three [of the European Convention on Human Rights]”.

The EHRC also reckoned that existing marriage and civil partnership laws discriminated against and breached the human rights of married couples where one of whom wants to change their gender.

“The dual system of civil partnership for same-sex couples and marriage for different-sex couples means married transgender people are forced to choose between ending their marriage and having their acquired gender officially recognised by law,” the commission said. “The review finds that the current options either to end the marriage and enter into a civil partnership, or remain in a marriage but not be recognised in one’s acquired gender, means that transgender people cannot enjoy their right to a private identity and personal relationships, such as marriage.”