Tonight at 9pm (9 April 2009) there is a Panorama Special - Britain's Homecare Scandal, where Panorama goes undercover inside some of Britain's biggest homecare providers to reveal a chaotic picture and even neglect.
Has anyone been subjected to this type of care, as we would like to hear from you and your views.
What shocks me as a director of a company that cares for the elderly in their own homes is that, having watched the Panorama program on exposing "cowboy" care companies, I am surprised with all the Government legislation and with the Care Quality Commission (CQC), formerly the CSCI, supposedly "watching" over these companies, that this sort of thing goes on!
The thing that I am most annoyed about, as a home care company, is that this sort of thing gives the industry a bad reputation. Business is hard enough without these "cowboys" making things more difficult.
Only last week we came across a blind elderly lady that is receiving day care from a company that had not reviewed their care plan for over 2 years! The CQC minimum is once every 12 months and we do this three times per year, so something is going wrong and this is an agency contracted to Essex County Council, so am really shocked!
It is all very well for the great and good, such as Joan Bakewell, to wring their hands and say: "It simply isn't good enough, something must be done!" but until local authorities are forced to pay rates which will attract skilled and dedicated care workers and allocates sufficient time to allow the job to be done properly, nothing will change.
I've read an article about the Panorama carers going undercover.. what really irked me the most is this one..
"On shift, Hayley finds tight schedules causing havoc for staff. While visiting a 77-year-old terminally ill man, her colleague's phone rings. As the elderly client asks for oxygen, his carer is talking on the phone about work throughout."
I can just imagine the face of the patient..