Older people left behind
R&RA’s director, Helen Wildbore, shares the highlights and lowlights of the year at our annual member’s meeting
22 September 2022:
Looking back at 2021-2022, it was another very challenging year for older people needing care.
As the country emerged from the pandemic, older people continued to be left behind. Whilst restrictions ended for the rest of the country, people in care were the only ones left living under COVID rules.
R&RA pushed hard for changes to restrictive Government rules; meeting with the Care Minister, ensuring the voices of older people needing care were heard at the Department’s COVID stakeholder group, even submitting a rewrite of the guidance supported by the main care provider organisations. Although that was dismissed, we did achieve substantial improvements to the guidance:
A focus on resident’s legal rights
Flexibility in relatives/friends wearing face coverings
Blanket quarantine periods after visits out were dropped
So too the rule of only one visitor during outbreaks which we told the Gov was causing carer burnout
But even today we continue to hear from helpline clients who are prevented from visiting their loved ones during outbreaks. And our calls for the Gov to relax the universal face mask rule in care settings have been dismissed, despite them causing distress, confusion and hindering vital communication.
Older people have been failed by the very systems designed to protect their rights throughout the pandemic. Not least by the regulator – we wrote again to the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to express our disappointment with their failings. They have refused to take a proactive role during the pandemic, relying on families to alert them to problems. As we have told them, this simply doesn’t work when so many are afraid to speak out due to the power imbalance written into the system. We gave evidence to Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights, telling them:
“Older people in care are facing the most catastrophic and sustained attack on their human rights we’ve ever seen”
The Committee’s hard-hitting report essentially told the CQC to get on and do their job!
Time and again the Government and its agencies repeated their mistakes and failed to learn lessons about how to manage the pandemic. Only last month asymptomatic testing was paused in care settings yet universal rules on face coverings continued. We pushed for the COVID public inquiry to get underway and we are applying for core participant status to ensure the voices of older people needing care are heard and lessons are learned. No-one should have to suffer the preventable horrors of the pandemic again; isolated from loved ones and their vital support, mental and physical health declining as a result. Too many simply giving up on life. Too many dying alone.
Our calls for a new legal right to a Care Supporter will pick up pace, so that everyone who needs the care and support of a relative/friend across health and care will never be left isolated again.
Our helpline continues to support people lost in the maze of the care system, worried about:
the lack of good care homes and home care
staff shortages which have reached crisis point
falling care standards
rising living costs
We will push for the new Government to give social care the attention it desperately needs:
for urgently needed reform
for the rights of older people needing care to be respected
for care to be as highly valued as the NHS
a focus on the people needing care and support, not on systems
The initial work of the new Government shows we have a long way to go, as the new Secretary of State for Health and Social Care announced this morning “patients are my top priority”!
Our small, but amazing team – Emma, Trevor and Nicky – have a lot to be proud of, but a lot still to do! We thank our members for their support – we couldn’t do it without you!
To join R&RA as a member and support our work championing the rights of older people, please click here