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UK:
Time to Protect Elderly From Attacks
Norwich Evening News
June 13, 2003
UK - A
loophole in care regulations is to be closed in a bid to protect elderly
and disabled people from abuse or injury.
People applying for care jobs with private agencies in Norfolk now face
checks by the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) before being allowed to look
after vulnerable people living in their own homes.
The move closes a loophole created last November when the Government said
examinations into the criminal history of care staff was not necessary, to
help clear a massive backlog of CRB checks by the needed on people working
with children.
It is the latest bid to toughen up regulations in the care industry which
is now overseen by the independent watchdog, the National Care Standards
Commission.
Agencies will also be required to carry out more thorough reference checks
under tougher rules designed to protect people from criminals and those
with violent pasts.
Pensioners' groups today said disabled people were often easy targets for
petty thieves, and some had suffered violence or intimidation for many
months before it was uncovered.
Gabe Conlon, of help group Action on Elder Abuse, said:
"Unfortunately this is far too typical. We estimate there could be as
many as 415,000 victims a year.
"Obviously one of the problems is that many of these older people
that live on their own and are very reluctant to raise problems for fear
of further intimidation, or because no-one will listen.
"Sometimes they don't even realise they have been the victim of
crime, particularly in the case of theft. Sometimes they see it as the
cost they pay for being able to stay in their own homes."
Britain's first combined police and social services team was set up last
year in Norfolk to investigate cases of abuse against pensioners and
disabled people at the hands of people employed to look after them.
Norfolk County Council uses thousands of private care agency staff and
employs about 1,000 home care workers.
Social services spokesman Dan Pritchard said: "We do use care agency
staff but this also has an effect on our own staff.
"The CRB have been carrying out checks on all our new staff and now
they can start to process our existing staff as well.
"It made sense when the CRB was under pressure to keep checking new
staff, as existing staff had already been checked out under the previous
system, which included police checks."
Angela Gifford, of Norwich-based private agency Able Community Care, said
she welcomed the additional checks but there were still holes in the
system.
"We are registered to put people though, but the system is only as
good as the day it is done. There is nothing to guarantee they will not
offend the day after the check is done," she said.
"Quite a few private agencies also get staff from overseas. They will
find trying to check the records of these people almost impossible. So,
although it is welcome, it may not be quite as beneficial as maybe people
think."
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