The care of the elderly is on the agenda of the Scottish Human Rights Commission. In an impassioned call for action following the conclusion of the consultation, former Justice Minister Cathy Jamieson says care should be available by right, and those rights should be protected in law, whether the recipient is in residential care or at home.

Consultation on the Scottish Human Rights Commission’s first strategic plan closed at the end of March 2009.

Its consultation document highlights that the SHRC has been finding out about the experiences of a range of people, including elderly citizens, and has already begun a scoping study on the conditions of older people and particularly of those in residential care.

These aims are very laudable, and indeed timely. We must be extremely vigilant in ensuring that anyone who is looked after in a care setting,  young or older,  is indeed treated with dignity at all times, and their rights not only respected in theory, but promoted in practice.  I would argue however that the Commission should expand its remit beyond only those elderly people living in care homes, and include the conditions in which elderly people are experiencing in their own homes, when care is provided there.

Anyone who watched the recent Panorama programme on BBC could not fail to have been moved by the plight of elderly people stripped of the most basic human dignities.  As we sat in the comfort of our own homes, witnessing the terminally ill patient screaming out in pain while being washed and the elderly man surviving on a diet of sandwiches and snacks  rather than proper meals, we must all have wondered what had happened to a rights based approach to care.

These grim scenes are far from my idea of the standards which our elderly citizens deserve.  The Care Commission has made a statement, explaining that the care providers will be monitored and if necessary held to account. But serious questions still need to be asked and answers found. The shocking scenes in the programme should act as a wake up call to all of us. It is not good enough to blame individual staff. What was highlighted was a systemic failure of an approach which sees elderly people’s lives auctioned off to the lowest bidder.  An approach which saw quality of care take less of a priority than shaving the budget.

As a young trainee social worker, I spent several weeks working in a residential home for elderly people, as part of my induction to the job.  I recall a number of the residents chiding me for spending too much time talking to them or organising activities, when there was ‘work to be done’, by which they meant the basic caring duties. Many of the people cared for in that setting would not be considered for residential care today. They would be in sheltered housing, or in their own homes, with support from paid carers.  

The move from institutional care was done to give elderly people the dignity of individual care in their own homes. It was supposed to allow them to remain near family, and in their own community. Sadly those ideals have been lost along the way.  I have met elderly people who are suffering because they have been unable to get the aids and adaptations needed to help them have a decent quality of life, because budgets have run out.  I’ve heard from family members how difficult it is to get their relatives placed in care homes within easy travelling distance, and how choice is only something that is talked about and not delivered.

With an increasing elderly population and more people living with long term conditions, at the same time as constraints on Council funding, we must ensure that we are providing proper care and not simply warehousing people in their own homes.

When taking the legislation to set up the Scottish Human Rights Commission through Parliament, I put up strong arguments against those who dismissed it as irrelevant or a talking shop, which would do little to improve the lot of ordinary people.  Of course the Care Commission must act to sort out the immediate issues, ensure our elderly people are safe, and that services meet the standards laid out.

But there is surely a role for the SHRC in looking at the wider context of how we promote the rights of our elderly citizens as recipients of care, and what society expects in terms of human dignity. If the Scottish Human Rights Commission can help ensure that elderly people have a voice and promote changes to poor practice then it will serve us well.