Crabbit Old Woman

Here is an extract from Amanda Waring’s What do you See?

This powerful award-winning short film, stars Virginia McKenna.

It is based upon Crabbit Old Woman a poem written in 1966 by Phyllis McCormack, then working as a nurse in Sunnyside Hospital, Montrose. The poem is written in the voice of an old woman in a nursing home who is reflecting upon her life. Crabbit is Scots for "bad-tempered" or "grumpy".

It makes me so sad. The fact that service users are still treated like this is just wrong. Not all care is abusive or poor but too much still occurs in Care Homes across the World. Something needs to be done about this abuse before it gets out of hand.

Abuse isn’t as widely report so statistics are few and mainly an estimate.  According to the best estimates, about 1-2 million older people 65 years of age or older have been mistreated, exploited or injured by a caregiver. Frequency estimates regarding the abuse of the elderly range from 2-10 percent, depending on how the study was conducted.

In the UK, Safeguarding Adults is now a statutory duty, however, before 1 April 2015 this was not the case.

This isn’t just a UK issue, Globally, the number of cases of elder abuse is projected to increase as many countries have rapidly ageing populations whose needs may not be fully met due to resource constraints. It is predicted that by the year 2050, the global population of people aged 60 years and older will more than double, from 900 million in 2015 to about 2 billion, with the vast majority of older people living in low- and middle-income countries. If the proportion of elder abuse victims remains constant, the number of victims will increase rapidly due to population ageing, growing to 320 million victims by 2050.

It is clear that the care system 'disintegrating', with thousands of pensioners in care homes and their own homes being left to be abused, even though concerns had been raised.

Last year research found nine in ten care workers have witnessed abuse in homes with pensioners tied to chairs, starved and turned into the victims of cruel pranks. Widespread neglect and attacks on care home residents, with psychological games most commonly cited as the type of abuse witnessed.

Yet, Care Workers are still not regulated unlike other Health Professionals who require a PIN or Registration to work within the Care Arena.

You can purchase the full Film: What do you See from Amazon for £20

Why are 900 Carers quitting the Social Care System every day?

Recently published figures by the Charity Skills for Care revealed that in England last year, more than 900 adult social care workers quit their job every day.

In response to the ongoing crisis facing the sector, the Chancellor did announce in his Spring Budget 2017 that £2bn was being made available help ease the pressures – with £1bn of this funding being available from 2017/18. In addition to this the Chancellor also allowed local authorities to raise council tax bills in order to fund social care services.

The ageing population means more pressure is facing adult social care systems than ever before, and the chairman of the UK Homecare Association has written to the Prime Minister to say that the adult social care system (which applies to anyone over the age of 18) is on the brink of collapse.

According to the Office for National Statistics, the number of people aged 75 and over is expected to double by 2040, and without any reforms, there will not be enough people to care for an ageing population.

However, is it just about the money? With the National Living Wage and National Minimum Wage set to increase year upon year, things will only get tougher for a sector that struggles to pay those wages. The care sector has twice the turnover of staff than any other profession in the UK (27%).

But was this not indicated in the 1980’s when the Tories under Thatcher implemented the introduction of care management under the NHS and Community Care Act 1990 which saw direct, relationship-based work with adult users replaced with bureaucracy aimed at rationing resources?  The community care reforms outlined in the 1990 Act have been in operation since April 1993. They have been evaluated but no clear conclusions have been reached. Several authors have been highly critical of the reforms. Hadley and Clough (1996) claim the reforms 'have created care in chaos' (Hadley and Clough 1996). They claim the reforms have been inefficient, unresponsive, offering no choice or equity.

The Edith Ellen Foundation, managed to speak with a number of Social Care Workers to discuss the figures and the reasoning behind why so many are leaving. The Foundation explained to those who met with them that there were more than 1.3 million people employed in the adult social care sector in England, and roughly 338,520 adult social care workers left their job in 2015/16 – this equates to 928 people leaving their roles every day and that over half of these people never worked in the care sector again.

The honest and frank discussion this opportunity presented demonstrated that Carers aren’t leaving care because they don’t care anymore, but because they are:

·         Overworked

·         Underpaid

·         Pressurised to meet targets and timescales

·         Unable to spend the time actually caring, listening and supporting

·         Under trained and under skilled

·         Under staffed

·         Unappreciated

·         Unsupported

Is it any wonder then that the Social Care System faces difficulty and putting people at risk of receiving poor levels of care? These growing staff shortages are putting vulnerable people at risk of receiving poorer levels of care.