Care Quality Commission says unannounced inspections will be carried out from next month
‘Dignity’ inspections in hundreds of care homes within weeks
A team of inspectors is to be sent into hundreds of care homes within to check whether elderly people are being treated with dignity.
The care regulator the Care Quality Commission, said inspectors would begin carrying out unannounced spot checks on residential homes across England from next month checking whether basic standards are being maintained.
It comes as the Government threw its weight behind a new code of conduct for care workers and nurses which demands that elderly patients are treated with dignity and respect and not simply treated as “objects”.
Politicians on both sides of the Commons, The Royal College of Nursing, the TUC, and charities including AGE UK are among supporters of the new “Dignity Code” drawn up by the National Pensioners’ Convention.
Care workers could eventually have this new code written into their contracts, supporters hope.
In a letter to The Daily Telegraph, signed by the care minister Paul Burstow and his Labour shadow, Liz Kendall, supporters of the new code warn that pensioners are repeatedly being prevented from making up their own minds, denied treatment on the basis of their age, spoken down to and deprived of privacy.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/
