The government’s ‘dignity in care’ campaign is being extended to people with mental health problems, nine months after it was launched to ensure older people were treated with respect by health and care professionals.
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Ulster’s main political parties have criticised the Government’s delay in abolishing 50% remission for serious sex offenders and violent criminals. The Belfast Telegraph has revealed that almost 80 sex offenders have been released from jail half-way through their sentences since the Government stated it would replace the policy.
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New figures have revealed the shocking extent of poverty among lone parent families. More than two thirds of lone parents have an income of less than £15,000 a year, while one in three lives on less than £10,000, according to children’s charity NCH Scotland.
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Social workers in a city where a baby boy was battered to death despite concerns being raised beforehand are making significant changes to the way they work. Staff are to become less desk-bound, and a policy of offering “office appointments” to parents who are the subject of concern will be scrapped.
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At the height of the Lothian bed blocking crisis, there were so many elderly patients with nowhere to go they could have filled every bed in St John’s Hospital. With the emergence of a booming property market in the Capital, care home owners began cashing in on megaprofits.
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Concern is mounting among AMs and MPs about proposals to send patients from north Wales to Swansea or Cardiff for brain operations.
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Vulnerable elderly people are being subjected to neglect, abuse, discrimination and ill-treatment in the hospitals and care homes that should be looking after them, according to a report published today by a parliamentary committee.
{mosimage}The study by the joint committee on human rights warns that many older people are facing maltreatment ranging from physical neglect so severe they are left lying in their own faeces or urine to malnutrition and dehydration through lack of help with eating.
Lack of dignity, especially for personal care needs, inappropriate medication designed more to subdue patients than treat them, and over-hasty discharge from hospital are also causing suffering for many older people, the MPs and peers conclude.
The report, the most high-level to date to highlight disturbing levels of neglect and abuse of the elderly in Britain, argues that the law should be strengthened to compel hospitals and care homes to protect the human rights of older people in their care.
The committee says that “an entire culture change” is needed to ensure that patients and staff who work with them are aware of their basic human rights. While there have been some recent signs of progress in policy and guidance, the rhetoric has not translated into practice on the ground, the report concludes.
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Private nurseries are being forced out of business due to an oversupply of places created by state-funded nurseries and day care centres, it was claimed yesterday.
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A disturbing picture of the abuse and neglect suffered by elderly people in care homes and hospitals is revealed today in a parliamentary report.
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A senior police officer yesterday issued a devastating critique of the way towns were being blighted by violent, drunken youths who had made people afraid to walk the streets.
