Governance | BetterCareScotland - holding Scotland's social care system to account!

One woman tells her story … #5

lack of expertise of Scotland's Care Inspectorate

Of misplaced trust. Of bureaucracy & cover-up. Of a social care system paying lip service to the needs of Scotland’s most vulnerable.

Extract V: Scotland’s hippie dippie Care Inspectorate

From the sitting room window, I watched the RSPCA van pull into the care home car park. On impulse, I smiled and waved in its general direction then saw that I might be regarded as one of those poor people I’d seen staring bleakly at passers-by through care home windows. Not waving but drowning, I’d thought, waving cheerily back but wishing I could do more. It turns out I was right.

“If only they could take me too!” I said, turning to address the room’s only other occupant and pointing towards the window. “The RSPCA!”

The room’s only other occupant didn’t look up but seemed to smile. Or was that a grimace, even a grrrrrrrrrrimace through gritted teeth! I couldn’t tell. She carried on, head down, flicking through pages in the file balanced on her knees, ticking boxes, it seemed. She was from the Care Inspectorate. And, I’d been told to be on my best behaviour.

I’d been told, also, to tell the woman from the Care Inspectorate, “It’s great that places like this exist!”

Three days this week, in the lead-up to the Care Inspectorate’s visit, we’d done role play with Liz, the part-time activities coordinator. Liz took the role of the Care Inspectorate inspector which seemed to require her to pull on a black wig and smile at each of us in turn, saying, “Hello, how are you?”, to which, we were to reply, “I’m fine thank you. It’s great that places like this exist!”

Fran said, “Nobody puts words in my mouth! I’m saying nothing!” and the rest of us murmured in agreement.

“Shouldn’t we be saying, it’s great that this place exists?”, George wondered. “It doesn’t sound right if we’re glad that places like this exist. It’s as if we’re not fully behind this particular place.”

All but Liz, the part-time activities coordinator, agreed with George’s every sentiment. She thought it wrong to change horses mid-stream. She said so!

I tried out the line on my son when he came to take me for tea.

“It’s great that places like this exist!”, I said, apropos of nothing and, perhaps, without sufficient sincerity and we creased up at the thought of anyone trying to brainwash me … and, presumably, the Care Inspectorate … and came up with our own variant. I daren’t disclose what we thought I should say and, in the event, the woman from the Care Inspectorate showed no interest whatsoever I me so I had no opportunity to let her know.

I sat down in an armchair close enough to watch the woman from the Care Inspectorate in action, as it were. Authority figures fascinate me. Poor deluded fools who think they know better than the rest of us! Someone ought to tell them!

“I’m Elle!”, I said. The woman from the Care Inspectorate was too busy to reply. She wore a laminated card on a ribbon round her neck. I couldn’t read her name from where I sat.

Since moving into the care home, I’ve taken to sitting with my fingers crossed, hoping that the overgrown elm in the garden would land on the building and put us all out of our misery. Or, short of that, that the porridge pot would explode and rip apart the kitchen, preferably before they start serving breakfast, so that the whole dump can be officially declared unfit for human habitation, that sort of thing. For, it is a dump, this care home. And, I don’t know why the council keep sending people here, to be frank, or why the Care Inspectorate doesn’t seem to notice. As for the owner, we won’t go there!

“Why don’t you come and stay a while?”, I suggested. “I wouldn’t recommend the food! And, you’d need to take care in those heels not to trip on the worn carpets. But, don’t let me put you off.”

Head down, Mrs Inspector continued smiling/grimacing.

“By the way, I wouldn’t sit in that chair, if I were you.”, I said, leaning froward and lowering my voice. “Some poor soul had what’s called an accident in it a few days ago. The smell has lifted but they haven’t cleaned it yet! I don’t expect them to!” All his was factually correct but Mrs Inspector wasn’t listening. She’d zoned out, as they say.

When I said, “You could do with losing some weight!”, scrutinising her with one eye closed, she looked directly at me for the first time, quite expressionless, as she got up! I uncrossed my fingers just for the moment and smiled.

“I’m Ellie!”, I said to her back as she left the room.

My son says that Care Inspectorate inspectors have no incentive to engage with care home residents on inspection visits for fear of being made aware of something they’d actually have to investigate and that they prefer to be blissfully ignorant or, as he calls it, “wilfully blind”.

The most fun I had in that care home … or hell-hole as my son calls it … was reading aloud with Annie and George and Margaret the ‘residents’ feedback’ in Care Inspectorate reports my son printed out and trying to guess which area of Scotland the care home must be in.

It doesn’t take a genius to know that Scotland is a melting pot of accents and that, for a multitude of reasons, people end up in care homes nowhere near the place of their birth and they take their accents with them.

We decided that the Care Inspectorate employs someone to sit in their fancy offices in Dundee … or at their kitchen table, now that they don’t even bother going in to work … to come up with likely-sounding phrases that they run through a dialect app to transform them into likely-sounding pieces of Doric, Lallans, Morningside, or Dundonian vernacular to fool us into believing that they take an actual interest in care home residents. It keeps people in a job, I suppose!

But, there is a serious side to this which the Care Inspectorate don’t recognise: the risk of the most vulnerable residents feeling the need to pick up local slang used by staff in order to ‘fit in’. With hindsight I can see that, when I was abused in the care home of which I was expected to say, “It’s great that places like this exist!”, I developed coping mechanisms to get by including mimicking the staff’s coarse vernacular for it made them laugh. I reasoned that, if I were popular, I’d be a less-likely target for abuse. The thought that my abuser would turn their attention from me and focus on one of my fellow-residents is something that haunts me to this day!

BetterCareScotland’s data, from the lived experience of our subscribers – care home residents, their family members and friends together with care home staff, former and in-post social workers, and Care Inspectorate staff who dare not blow the whistle for fear of the consequences – show that Scotland’s Care Inspectorate lacks the professional expertise expected of a serious regulator.

By actively seeking to recruit people with “soft skills” when risk management, governance, regulatory and compliance expertise and technical and analytical skills and experience are needed, we find a Care Inspectorate with historical leadership issues and an organisation that has lost its way so completely that it is now fully out of its depth.

Our analyses find that Scotland’s social care regulator has a consistently-high fail-rate in targeting care homes which pose the greatest risk to the wellbeing of residents and staff. This is unacceptable in a care sector that can, literally, bury its mistakes.

It leads us to question whether Scotland’s Care Inspectorate plays a meaningful role in uncovering issues in the delivery of care. And, if this is by design or outcome – for Scotland’s Care Inspectorate does not operate in a vacuum. And our subscribers’ experiences suggest that it fails to act independently of local authorities when things go wrong.

We test the hypotheses that the Care Inspectorate is fair and consistent and recognises the key-risk-indicators in residential care provision for older people for we find evidence of it failing to target commercially-unviable care homes for older people that are strategic-fits for local authorities despite the risks to residents and staff from under-resourcing when the care provider has no economies of scale on which to draw.

BetterCareScotland asks, also, if the Care Inspectorate fulfils its statutory obligation to act independently of local authorities in High Level Investigations or if it is incentivised to close ranks and follow the local authorities’ lead. And, therefore, if the Care Inspectorate in its current form adds any value whatsoever to social care delivery and provision processes for older people in Scotland.

SCOTLAND’S HIPPY DIPPY CARE INSPECTORATE

The recently-retired chief executive of Scotland’s Care Inspectorate claimed that the “soft skills” of the Care Inspectorate’s staff enable them, in some hippy dippy way it seems, to “sense” when things don’t feel right on inspection visits to care homes for older people in Scotland.

BetterCareScotland’s data show that the Care Inspectorate’s crystal ball doesn’t work!

Email BetterCareScotland for a copy of our February 2021 research paper for Scotland’s Parliament,

HOLDING SCOTLAND’S CARE INSPECTORATE TO ACCOUNT?
A critical evaluation of Parliament’s scrutiny of Scotland’s social care regulator!

SO LAST CENTURY

In general, our data indicate that the Care Inspectorate’s philosophy, operations and methods are ‘so last century’. By way of example, during the pandemic, the Care Inspectorate produced fortnightly reports for Scotland’s Parliament from which nothing can be ascertained or comparisons made or conclusions drawn from one report to the next. At a time when Scotland’s decision-makers needed key facts and reliable hard data that could be eyeballed by busy people, the Care Inspectorate supplied bed-time stories.

What these fortnightly reports do provide, however, is an insight into the Care Inspectorate’s inconsistency of approach on inspection visits, a common complaint of care home managers. We see this as evidence of ill-discipline which no well-regulated sector should observe of its oversight bodies when confidence is needed and springs from the Care Inspectorate’s reliance on “soft skills” which, by their nature, create bias and subjectivity where certainty is key.

By extracting the information content from these fortnightly reports, BetterCareScotland has produced the sort of meaningful data Scotland’s Parliament should have expected to receive. It is an irony that, despite BetterCareScotland’s resource constraints, our data are superior to those of the regulator of Scotland’s social care system.

LET BETTERCARESCOTLAND KNOW

If you have concerns about the response you received from Scotland’s Care Inspectorate when you reached out, let BetterCareScotland know!

We will protect your information and will not share it with others.

If you prefer to remain anonymous, you can tell us of your experiences by completing only the ‘Message’ box of the feedback form on our website’s Home page.

Love and Peace!

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” … Maya Angelou

Help to ensure that the vested interests and perverse incentive structures in Scotland’s social care system can be be designed out of the National Care Service so that the Scottish Government can deliver on its promise of good care outcomes, as standard, for all people in need of care in Scotland.

If you have a story you need to tell and would like to discuss it with BetterCareScotland, please feel free to get in touch with us by email.

We will protect your information and will not share it with others.

If you prefer to remain anonymous, you can tell us of your experiences by completing only the ‘Message’ box of the feedback form on our website’s Home page.

Be in the loop and receive updates from BetterCareScotland today!

Love and Peace!

Posted on July 17, 2022 by editor

Accountability, Adult Social Care in Scotland, Better Care Scotland, BetterCareScotland, Care Homes for Older People in Scotland, Care Inspectorate Scotland, Compliance, Governance, National Care Service Scotland, Public Sector, Regulation, Social Care Regulation, The democratic social contract

Better Care Scotland, Care home abuse, Care home neglect, Governance, Maya Angelou, National Care Service, Whistleblower

Ticking time-bombs!

Ticking time-bombs at the heart of Scotland’s social care system!

Increasingly, the people best-placed to monitor social care delivery and provision in Scotland find themselves stonewalled when they reach out to their local authority or to Scotland’s social care regulator, the Care Inspectorate, when things go wrong for them or for a family member or friend.

From their experiences, it is clear that scrutiny of the operations, performance and risks of Scotland’s 32 local authorities and the country’s Care Inspectorate is so lax that public sector staff working in social care in Scotland are, in effect, taken on trust while chief executives look the other way.

This is reminiscent of the light-touch regulation that sections of the British banking industry once enjoyed but which set the scene for high-profile scandals and blow-ups, like that of Barings in 1995, and led to the current ever-evolving system of financial regulation and risk management designed to align the incentives of retail banks, financials services firms and their customers.

BetterCareScotland exposes the unfortunate consequences for people experiencing poor social care outcomes in Scotland on the very day that the UK Parliament’s cross-party Joint Committee on Human Rights acknowledges the pain and suffering that public institutions and state employees can knowingly inflict on people at their time of greatest need.

Against this backdrop, people in Scotland are routinely silenced, blamed, even threatened by high-handed and judgemental local authority and Care Inspectorate staff when they reach out, their concerns deflected and covered-up. For, Scotland’s local authorities and its Care Inspectorate have brought the country’s social care system to its knees, a fact that the heads of these bodies take care to conceal.

The lived-experiences of BetterCareScotland’s subscribers reveal grotesque abuses of position by local authority social care bosses and chief executives and a supposedly-independent Care Inspectorate lacking in conviction and seemingly unaware that it has a role in exercising oversight of social care delivery by Scotland’s local authorities. It is clear that Scotland’s Care Inspectorate and some of the country’s local authorities should have been placed in special measures years ago.

From 2028/29, if Scotland’s dysfunctional social care system is replaced by a fully-operational National Care Service, local authorities will no longer have responsibility for the delivery of social care. But 2028/29 cannot come soon enough. With ticking time-bombs at the heart of the country’s social care system, four years is a long time for things to go badly wrong!

By analysing data from our subscribers’ lived experiences of social care delivery, provision, and regulation – whether as a service user or a family member or friend, a carer, a former or in-post social worker, or a Care Inspectorate staffer, none off whom dare blow the whistle for fear of the consequences – BetterCareScotland identifies risks to which people in desperate need of care in Scotland are exposed but which become apparent to them and their family members and friends only when it is too late.

Our data show that, when things do go wrong, local authority and Care Inspectorate staff are incentivised to go to great lengths to keep people at an informational disadvantage when transparency should be expected. And to deny people a remedy, even when the only remedy sought is the assurance that no-one else will be abused as they were. It is hard to imagine a social care system further removed from the Nordic model to which Scotland aspires.

The experience of our contributors is that no form of retaliation seems out of bounds to local authority staff when people reach out after things go wrong. In the words of Tom, a BetterCareScotland subscriber, “You will be deflected, denigrated, discredited, ridiculed, blamed, even threatened by the chief executive’s staff – and that’s just before lunch!” But, such remarkable stoicism conceals the dreadful impacts on the mental health of people finding themselves at the mercy of uncaring local authority and Care Inspectorate staff.

In a series of ‘ticking time-bomb’ blogs, BetterCareScotland will reveal the grotesque nature of the risks to which people at their time of greatest need are knowingly exposed by local authority and Care Inspectorate staff in Scotland who, despite their duty of care, are found to act in their own self-interest at the direction of senior co-workers, management teams, department heads and, ultimately, unaccountable chief executives. And of governance gaps and leadership issues which enable vested interests and perverse incentive structures to be hard-wired into Scotland’s social care system for the convenience of public sector staff.

Subscribe to BetterCareScotland to receive by email our ‘ticking time-bomb’ blog posts.

Love and Peace!

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” … Maya Angelou

If you have a story you need to tell and would like to discuss it with BetterCareScotland, please feel free to get in touch with us by email.

We will protect your information and will not share it with others.

If you prefer to remain anonymous, you can tell us of your experiences by completing only the ‘Message’ box of the feedback form on our website’s Home page.

Be in the loop and receive updates from BetterCareScotland today!

Love and Peace!

Posted on July 15, 2022 by editor

Accountability, Adult Social Care in Scotland, Better Care Scotland, BetterCareScotland, Care Inspectorate Scotland, Governance, Human rights, National Care Service Scotland, Public Sector, Social Worker, Whistleblower

Better Care Scotland, BetterCareScotland, Governance, Maya Angelou, National Care Service, Ticking time-bombs, Whistleblower

One woman tells her story … #3

Of misplaced trust. Of bureaucracy & cover-up. Of a social care system paying lip service to the needs of Scotland’s most vulnerable.

Extract III: caught in the Council’s social care web

My heart sank on seeing myself back where I was three years ago, listening to a social worker bent on persuading me to agree to something I would come to regret … but, this time around, knowing I was being deceived. After the phone call, we checked the diary and found that it was three years to the very day since the previous social worker pulled the self-same stunt, one that saved her employer, the local Council, an amount of around fourteen thousand pounds at my expense for it deprived me for seventeen months of my entitlement to Free Personal Care. And, here was the new social worker, making contact for the first time, intent on deceiving me the same way.

Free Personal Care in Scotland is a social care benefit to which people, aged sixty-five or over and assessed as being in need, are entitled, irrespective of means. In my own case, three years ago I was in my hundredth year and had moved in with my son after being abused in a care home for older people. My own home had been sold to pay for my residential care. And, with only the last vestiges of the proceeds of the sale of my home left to me and a small pension for a rainy day – an increasingly more frequent event you will discover if you reach my age – the local Council had resolved to impoverish me completely.

I looked at my son in disbelief. “To the very day!”, I said, knowing that this aspect of the matter was of no real significance but, somehow, it encapsulated my sense of outrage.

“It’s a scam!”, my son said, summing it up perfectly. “You’ll remember we worked out that the previous social worker had pulled a fast one when the Council blamed us for what she’d done. This latest attempt shows it to be a scam, I have absolutely no doubt!”

“A scam!”, I repeated, nodding as if I were deliberating on the meaning of the whole thing, its implications and all it entailed. “But, it’s so simple! Too simple!”, I said. “How on earth were we taken in the last time!”

My son was frowning. He’s a level-headed economist with a reputation for making sense of raw data but – while I have no trouble stating that I hate cheats, period – he has his Buddhist beliefs to consider. He got up and made tea. I switched on the radio. The anti-Fascist message of Shostakovich Seven that was playing on Radio 3 was lost on neither of us.

Over tea, my son explained that some of the most successful scams are unsophisticated but, for people to be taken in by them, scammers need to appear, not just plausible but, genuine. He said that social workers who abuse their position won’t typically face such hurdles as they expect to be and are taken on trust which makes their crimes especially egregious. But, what bothered him about the telephone call today was that it was made by a social worker determined to shaft me without any of the usual foreplay. “That’s a measure of the Council’s cynicism!”, he said. “There wasn’t even the slightest pretence at common courtesy.” As my son spoke, had I been less superstitious, I would have cursed her, yet another who was willing to exploit the fears and anxieties of people like me.

“The fact that your new social worker has just tried to pull the same stunt means there’s a systematic aspect to this scam, that it’s a well-worn as it’s worked in the past and that you or, rather, we are seen as an easy target. Since they know there’s nothing to lose, they’ll miss no opportunity to perpetrate these sorts of scams.”

“Oh dear! Easy targets! Does this new social worker really think we’ll fall for it again?”, I asked. I felt uneasy about Council’s staff having me in their sights.

“It’s likely she won’t know you’ve already been scammed. From what I’ve seen, the Council’s records don’t reflect the facts. They’re more a work of fiction.”

“The effort the last social worker went to!”, I reflected, “All those visits when I had better things to do than listen to her waffle on about her parterre. Leading me to believe she cared! Does she never stop and think of the harm she causes!”

“Do you remember, we used to think her ineffectual at best or lazy at worst?”

“But, it turns out that she’s nothing short of a psychopath!” My son looked intently at me. I could see he agreed. “Only a psychopath would gain someone’s trust only to take advantage and then lie about it to cover their own back!”

“It’s a blessed relief she’s no longer your social worker. And, that we know now to question absolutely everything this latest social worker says! She won’t be happy about being challenged!”

“Good!”, I said. “Good!”

To my relief, listening to my son, I realised that I no longer harboured doubts about involving him in this hideous business, pitted against people who do not share our values. I could see why the Council chief executive was so desperate to get him off her back. But, being dismissed, ridiculed, blamed, threatened, ignored, even threatened by her staff told us she had things to hide. And, strengthened our resolve.

“So, our emails to the chief executive about the last social worker depriving me of my Free Personal Care allowance won’t be on my file!”

“If they’re anywhere in the Council’s records, they’ll be buried. They won’t be flagged. The chief executive took care to do no more than acknowledge our emails. But I made sure to copy her into absolutely everything so that she can’t claim to know nothing. Today’s phone call might end up resurrecting the whole matter!”

“I fail to see why the Council needs a chief executive to do a job a robot could do! I’d know where I was with a robot!”

We laughed!

“The most primitive robot circa 1976 at that!”, my son agreed! “Just think of all the social care that could be funded from what the Council would save on her salary and fat pension!”

“You’ve become almost as cynical as your old mum!”, I said. “I’m lucky to have you on my side. I dread to think what might happen otherwise!”

When I suggested that the chief executive would respond differently if it were her mother being scammed by the Council, my son squeezed my hand.

“Your fists are clenched!”, he said. “Is it safe for me to sit so close?”

I agreed to put the whole matter to the back of my mind and leave it to my son to send a friendly email to the new social worker outlining our understanding of today’s telephone conversation, taking care to avoid alerting her to our concerns for, this time we needed hard evidence of the Council’s cynical intent.

We could not have known how that seemingly innocuous email would be received!

BetterCareScotland finds local authority chief executives making no attempt to see serious complaints investigated fully and resolved properly and, instead, employing staff for the express purpose of gaslighting and deflecting those who complain so as to ensure that the authority’s operations escape scrutiny – even if, as here, the complaint in question exposes a clear conflict of interest with a social worker’s deception saving the local authority a great deal of money at the expense of a service user and could indicate fraudulent activity by a rogue social worker if such activities are not, in fact, sanctioned by the authority.

Those of our subscribers with direct experience of what they have come to characterise as scams, designed by local authorities to deprive them or their family members or friends of social care funding they desperately need, report that the more serious the nature of a complaint, the less interest the local authority chief executive will show, that the staff who investigate complaints will typically be those complained-of, which creates another conflict of interest if this deters people from complaining, that staff will curtail all correspondence when they, invariably, fail to “find evidence” to support the complaint. It is, of course, naive for any local authority chief executive to imagine that, when things go wrong, the authority can systematically rely on such a defence of its failure to keep proper records.

BetterCareScotland would advise people to keep a simple log of all telephone calls and visits from social care staff. Even better, ask your social worker for their personal email address and follow-up every meeting or communication with an email outlining for the record your understanding of what was discussed. Do not be deterred when they fail to reply.

Service-users and their family members and friends should never find themselves having to second guess local authority staff or question their incentives, but our subscriber’s experiences of dysfunctional social care departments and a culture of cover-up when things go wrong suggest that the days of taking on trust your local authority in Scotland are long gone.

Extract III: caught in the Council’s social care web, shows that family members may be as vulnerable to scams perpetrated by local authority staff as the service users themselves when the relationship is based on trust. In properly-regulated sectors, like banking and finance, every imaginable safeguard has been put in place to protect consumers. Not so in social care delivery in Scotland where local authority chief executives are neither held accountable nor sanctioned when things go wrong. This creates no incentive to get things right or to disclose the true state of the authority’s operations.

Subscribe to BetterCareScotland and receive by email further extracts of this brave woman’s compelling story and the stories of other subscribers whose concerns are stonewalled by public bodies entrusted with social care delivery and regulation in Scotland!

If you have a story that you need to tell and you would like to discuss it with BetterCareScotland, please feel free to get in touch with us by email.

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” … Maya Angelou

Love and Peace!

If you have a story you need to tell and would like to discuss it with BetterCareScotland, please feel free to get in touch with us by email.

We will protect your information and will not share it with others.

If you prefer to remain anonymous, you can tell us of your experiences by completing only the ‘Message’ box of the feedback form on our website’s Home page.

Be in the loop and receive updates from BetterCareScotland today!

Love and Peace!

Posted on June 18, 2022 by editor

Accountability, Adult Social Care in Scotland, Better Care Scotland, Care Homes for Older People in Scotland, Care Inspectorate, Care Inspectorate Scotland, Care Needs, Care Plan, Free Personal Care Allowance, Governance, Human rights, Public Sector, Risk Management, Scottish Local Authorities, Social Care Regulation

Care home abuse, Care home neglect, Care Needs, Deflect, Gaslight, Governance, Maya Angelou, Risk Management, stonewall

One woman tells her story … #2

Of misplaced trust. Of bureaucracy & cover-up. Of a social care system paying lip service to the needs of Scotland’s most vulnerable.

Extract II: this great age!

I was 96 years old and locked-up in a care home when the abuse began so, although I may have wanted to run away – flight was out of the question. In any event, my instinct is to stand up to bullies, so fight it was!

I could not identify my abuser or abusers, I could give the Police officers only a description of the uniform worn and confirm that it would happen when I was in my room, most likely during the night. Nor did I recognise the voice from its menacing tone. I had not looked at my abuser’s face. When they asked me why, I explained that I didn’t think a human being capable of such cruelty so I dared not look up for fear of finding myself staring into the eyes of the Devil. That was a measure of my fear. The Police officers made notes. I was old enough to be their granny. I wondered what on earth they made of it all.

When they asked me if my abuser or abusers could have been male, my son excused himself and left the room. He returned just a minute or so later and apologised; he’d needed some air, he said. He told me later he’d been caught off-guard by the question. Without wishing to be cruel but needing him to question his assumptions – I may, in fact, have said ‘misconceptions’ – I told him that I will never be able to reveal the extent of the abuse. As he stared out of the window, I reflected that my words were heartless and that I felt oddly unmoved as I watched him breathing heavily.

I had assumed myself invincible but I began to see I’d been an easy target for my abuser. This bothered me. There were many times over my ten decades when I was aware of my own mortality, experiencing loss and hardship, from which at times I thought I would never recover, but had survived despite it all. It’s what we do! I think there’s some logic there! I confess I may have thought myself worthy of respect at this great age so may have invited the abuse despite being raised to expect nothing from others.

I saw that the very characteristics that made me a target – my quiet and shy nature; that I am polite and respectful – qualities my parents taught me to value, had exposed me to abuse by people with quite different standards, made me an open invitation, perhaps, to someone inclined to abuse. And, although I do not nor have ever consciously regarded myself as vulnerable on account of my sex or great age, I imagine that my abuser likely thought otherwise.

Unable to identify my abuser, despite being aware today that it must have been one of the night staff, I felt I could trust no-one and withdrew into myself. Mercifully, my change in mood went unnoticed as the care home owner had taken in three high-needs residents, each of whom needed one-to-one, 24-hour care, leaving just two out of the usual contingent of five carers, to work twelve hour shifts without breaks ministering to the various care needs of the rest of us.

When taking in these unfortunate high-needs residents, the care home owner deprived the rest of us not only of the care he was in business to provide but also of what I considered to be the home’s most valuable resource, the dining room, since he had turned that over for use as a ‘ward’ for the new high-needs residents and the carers who sat with them. I never met these poor souls who would spend the next eighteen months or so closeted in the former dining room.

Like me, my fellow residents also missed the dining room but, from my perspective, while it had ensured that I got some exercise each day getting there and back for meals and provided opportunities to socialise, I did not begrudge the high-needs residents its use – none of us did. Nor did I fail to see that its loss allowed me to occupy an armchair for days on end further reducing the likelihood that I would inadvertently interact with my abuser. What luck!

When our enthusiastic activities coordinator was incapacitated and unavailable for six months, the volume on the television sets was turned up and we were left to our own devices. Pure and unadulterated neglect at a time just when I needed to be left alone. I could scarce believe my good fortune!

For days on end I sat undisturbed in this manner. However, although this arrangement suited me, it happened to suit also the hard-pressed day carers, with the unfortunate consequence for me that, on days when they failed to toilet me, I would know to dread the arrival of the night carers and what lay in store for them … and me.

If my luck was in, the night carers would allow me to sleep in the armchair I’d occupied all day rather than toilet me. But, on nights when they insisted, despite my protestations, that I had to go to bed, I could expect my abuser to appear and exact revenge for increasing the workload, standing over me hissing “filthy bitch”.

My son came most days and took me for trips along the coast. He would chat as we drove along, asking me how I was, how things were, but I preferred to sit quietly catching glimpses of the sea between gaps in the hedgerows and speaking only to reminisce. With the care home so under-resourced, often we would take with us one or two of my more able fellow residents. Even the most junior member of staff seemed to have authority to grant us permission. I wondered if the staff would notice if we failed to return or if anyone but I had considered the legal implications were we to roll off the coast road and into the sea. I suspected not on either count!

The current manager was a family friend of the owner and recently retired, with no experience whatsoever of caring for the elderly and infirm. With my head down, I would watch her from under my brows. I could tell that she missed nothing – and, that she lacked empathy. Once, I saw her reduce Peggy’s son – a respected solicitor – to a blithering wreck when he arrived to find that his mother had been hospitalised. I could see, however, that this manager respected my son for he never failed to look her straight in the eye.

She happened to be ‘available’, it seems, just when it was discovered that the previous manager of several years was not qualified for the post, was “unfit” in the jargon, so had to go. Within a short time of her arrival, the new manager organised the admission, without reference to the existing residents or our family members, of the unfortunate high-needs residents I mention, and did so for the sole purpose of lining the owner’s pockets according to staff who, like us, the existing residents, were disadvantaged by the decision.

Our activities coordinator claimed she’d heard the new manager telling the care home owner that he wasn’t making enough money out of us and that she’d fix it. And, fix it she did!

The care home owner, a socially-inadequate man in his early forties, was rarely in evidence and would run for cover whenever a visiting relative appeared so my son took his concerns about understaffing and under-resourcing to the local Council’s chief executive for the home was largely Council-funded. The chief executive showed no interest whatsoever even though frail residents were falling over and suffering bruises and fractures like never before, bearing testament to the risks – had they been recorded and reported to higher authorities.

The Council’s disinterest would be the deciding factor in my quitting a care home which merits the warning “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here!” My ‘eventual’ discharge from that place, I’m told, could have been handled within the space of a week but took the Council five months to organise, during which period, they continued used to dispense largesse with my dwindling modest life savings for the care provider ‘s benefit.

My social worker, whose approach to her duty to safeguard my safety and welfare seemed to require her to chat about her new house and garden and her love of mid-Century design, was candid that my experiences would evoke little sympathy as I had lived to tell the tale. As an observer at close quarters of how my Council treats vulnerable citizens, and realising that social care is something the Council does ‘to’ people rather than ‘for’ them, I had already worked out for myself that, by surviving, I had given the Council work to do.

Quite how much work my blurting out over supper, in the warmth of my son’s home, that I had been abused would become apparent with time. As would the lengths to which the Council would go to silence me! And my determination to ensure that no other vulnerable care home resident in Scotland would share my experiences.

For the Council’s stonewalling of my son’s concerns would lead, just seven months later, to the abuse of at least three vulnerable older women and the bullying of female care staff by a man who, despite his criminal conviction for smashing his wife’s head against a brick wall in a public place, was employed by the care home owner – and kept in post even after these incidents of abuse – to provide care to his residents.

Given the silencing of my disclosures of abuse, it should come as no surprise that Executive Officers of the Council would assume the freedom to diminish the ordeals of these women and deceive elected representatives in order to avoid the need for an investigation. This is social care in modern Scotland!

BetterCareScotland finds that the care provider in question deprived his care home residents of a valuable resource and exposed them to the risk of understaffing by taking in three high-needs residents without reference to the residents or the residents’ family members.

The Council in question did not verify that the care provider would meet the care needs of the 3 high-needs individuals in addition to those of existing residents, several of whom had complex care needs. The Council’s response mirrors its disinterest when concerns were raised by family members.

BetterCareScotland finds social workers working for this Council expressing a long-held frustration that the Council takes this care home owner on trust.

The Care Inspectorate expressed no interest.

If you have a story that you need to tell and you would like to discuss it with BetterCareScotland, please feel free to get in touch with us by email.

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” … Maya Angelou

Love and Peace!

Posted on June 18, 2022 by editor

abuse, Accountability, Adult Social Care in Scotland, Care Homes for Older People in Scotland, Care Inspectorate, Care Inspectorate Scotland, Care Needs, Disclosure, Governance, Human rights, Risk Management, Scottish Local Authorities

Care home abuse, Care home neglect, Care Needs, Governance, Maya Angelou, Risk Management

One woman tells her story … #1

BetterCareScotland fights for social care reform in Scotland - Better Care Scotland

Of misplaced trust. Of bureaucracy & cover-up. Of a social care system paying lip service to the needs of Scotland’s most vulnerable.

Extract I: being silenced

“They would pull my nipples and laugh!” I was sitting at the kitchen table in my son’s flat. “They thought it amusing!” My son stared at the newspaper in front of him but said nothing. Despite his clear discomfort, I couldn’t bring myself to stop: “They would pull them right out to here!”, gauging from memory the extent of the affront. My son looked up and stared at my tired, old hands.

He did not look into my eyes or search my face. He knew what he was hearing was true: he’d had sufficient doubts about the competence of the care home owner and the new manager to know that he had to “rescue” me, as I describe it – and, so, just days after my 99th birthday, had whisked me away from the god-forsaken place where I’d funded my care for three years and five months. Over those final five months, the social care department had dragged-out a discharge process, which let the local Council continue to dispense largesse with my modest life savings for the benefit of the inept care home owner!

Now, as I spoke, my son was reliving all those times over the past three years when, on visits, I would tell him I was frightened but clam up when he asked me why. Out of fear, I had dared not tell him.

I had survived the ignominy of being bathed by gauche girls, completely unprepared for the task, who covered their embarrassment by pulling my nipples and laughing uproariously. I do not blame them. And I had survived without a cup of tea for comfort whenever I couldn’t sleep for I took seriously the hardened night carer’s threat to “pee” in it as punishment for being a nuisance. I needed no second warning.

I had survived being strapped to the bed to stop me reaching for the panic button and disturbing the night staff and had banished my teddy bear to the back of the wardrobe after they said he would bite me if I didn’t do what I was told. I had struck up an unlikely friendship instead with a large seven-legged spider who lived under the sink in the loo and emerged every morning without fail to look at this strange sobbing creature towering above it.

I had recovered from the fractured pelvis I sustained from rough handling, shall we say, and the consequent weeks of painful physiotherapy all of which went undocumented and, I believe, unreported by the care home – whatever difference that would have made – and had sat without company for days on end whenever fellow residents chose to sit alone and depressed in their rooms nursing their own unexplained bruises and fractures.

I had even survived the physical consequences of the powerful chemical cosh they administered daily to keep me sedated. And, after my escape, I had quickly regained my mobility, was no longer daytime-incontinent nor, after a great deal of TLC and regular visits to the GU clinic, any longer “prone” to urine infections, the care home’s leaving gift to me.

I survived for I did not give in, did not abandon hope, nor react like the kicked dog which tries to please its abusers. I refused to relinquish my pride despite knowing that this would likely do me no favours and, instead, took comfort in things that reminded me of the life I’d had … pieces of studio pottery and paintings my son had brought … and I developed coping mechanisms, refusing to let my abusers win. But, I did not survive unscathed. I am damaged goods and I have come to trust no-one so I dare not drop my guard.

My GP says the routine chemical cosh is likely to have lasting psychological effects from which I may never recover and to take things one day at a time and not to worry that I may not be as amiable as I was. And, I think of the thousands of others in my position – elderly and no longer self-reliant – and how they are being treated in the time left to them in care homes owned by people whose moral standards are never questioned.

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” Maya Angelou

I did not assume that life in a care home for older people would be as meaningful as the life I’d led or that giving up my independence and the family home would be without its issues. But, taking my lead from Diana Athill, a contemporary who threw caution to the wind and took up residence in a care home in 2010, I had expectations of a place befitting the price I was expected to pay and not the squalid, poorly-resourced, and (latterly) badly-managed place to which my social worker directed me. I could not have imagined that, in modern Scotland, an individual with no demonstrable interest in care, would be able to preside over my neglect and abuse and, like some latter-day Victorian husband, have me declared insane. This in an age when, in wider society, anyone who leverages power over another would be condemned rightly as predatory.

But, dreadful though my treatment was at the hands of this individual, my story is prompted by the response of the local Council which helped him to evade investigation by Police Scotland officers (who were non-judgemental and treated me with humanity and respect, for which I thank them), then added insult to injury by going out of its way to launder his reputation while denigrating me. And, I find myself trying to rationalise the lengths to which the Council went to silence and further abuse me for reaching out … and I wonder why, what purpose it serves. There surely has to be a reason. My local Council does not run itself. Like every other, it is run by people and the people who run my local Council have closed ranks against me. They see me as a threat to them in a personal sense! I’m aware of their desperation!

As I tell my story, I think of those others whose degrading abuse and neglect in care homes for older people went or will go undiscovered as would mine had I left the care home in the manner to be expected by its owner and staff rather than sentient and in a wheelchair. For, this is an industry that can bury its mistakes … quite literally! And, I hope that, by lifting the lid on my own experiences, I can help to ensure that those who are motivated to abuse people in under-resourced care homes for older people and Council staff who turn their backs when people reach out will be denied the opportunity to imagine that their crimes will go undiscovered.

Over three years have passed since I asked the Council chief executive respectfully, in the time left to me, to account for the Council’s role in the cover-up of my disclosures of abuse and since she replied, “I note what you write!” before throwing the matter to her attack-dog, the staff she can rely on to get me off her back. My son has unearthed more than enough to persuade me that the Council chief executive’s only incentive is to cover up my abuse.

I need to shout louder! Wish me luck!

So many red flags!

A woman with the courage to speak out being silenced by those in positions of power!

If you have a story that you need to tell and you would like to discuss it with BetterCareScotland, please feel free to get in touch with us by email.

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” … Maya Angelou

Love and Peace!

Posted on June 7, 2022 by editor

Adult Social Care in Scotland, Care Homes for Older People in Scotland, Care Inspectorate Scotland, cover-up, Disclosure, Governance, Human rights, Scottish councils, Social Care Regulation, Social Work

Care home abuse, Care home neglect, Diana Athill, Maya Angelou, Police Scotland, Sedation as a chemical cosh

Shining a light on Scotland’s broken social care system!

HELP TO SHINE A LIGHT ON SCOTLAND’S BROKEN SOCIAL CARE SYSTEM!

Twenty years ago, the Community Care and Health (Scotland) Act, 2002, enshrined in law the statutory entitlement to Free Personal Care for those who qualified. In its wisdom, the Implementation Steering Group determined that “It is for the individual local authority to decide how best to comply with the regulations and the guidance” which gave, in effect, discretion to local authorities to “not bother” and, within a matter of years to employ social workers for the express purpose of denying people the social care they desperately needed – and to go to any length to achieve this, including threatening people and creating division within families.

And so, Scotland’s social care system was brought to its knees by the public sector bodies with authority to administer and regulate it without effective oversight and no-one being held to account or sanctioned when things go wrong as they routinely do.

BetterCareScotland would like to hear from you if you were less than satisfied by the response or outcome to a complaint which you or a family member or friend raised with a local authority, a care home, a community care group and/or Scotland’s Care Inspectorate.

If your local authority or the Care Inspectorate stonewalled you, then work with BetterCareScotland and announce it to the world. From the lived experiences of our subscribers, meaningful conclusions can be drawn about Scotland’s broken social care system so that the country’s proposed National Care Service can be intelligently informed.

Did a local authority or Scotland’s Care Inspectorate refuse to listen to you or a family member or friend? Did either body fail to investigate your complaint in a meaningful way? Were you confident that the Care Inspectorate acted independently of your local authority and/or the care provider?

Did these bodies fail to keep a faithful record of events. Our data show that care group homes are routinely exposed in the Press over relatively trivial matters, with spokespeople from the local authority social care division and the Care Inspectorate keen to oblige with a comment, while abuse is covered up in Council-favoured independent care homes where residents are knowingly exposed to risk.

Did care home staff or a community care team dismiss your concerns or fail to record or report an incident? Then, announce it to the world!

Did a local authority fail to protect your private information?

Do you trust your social worker? Do you feel that your social worker is acting in your best interests? Have you received conflicting opinions from social workers? Do you suspect that your social worker’s role is to deny you your statutory entitlement by failing to assess your needs.

Do you feel that your council social care department is over-staffed given the resources they are employing to deny you your rights? What tactics did your social worker use to do so. Has your social worker intimated a desire to blow the whistle on a care home owner who has the council over a barrel but fears the repercussions? Has your social worker ever suggested they are forced to follow a council policy which they regard as illegal?

BetterCareScotland knows of one centenarian being forced to fund her care for SEVENTEEN MONTHS from her modest life savings solely because her social worker failed to assess her care needs – a saving of around FOURTEEN THOUSAND POUNDS for the Council chief executive, whose staff then proceeded to stonewall the woman’s request for payment of the arrears of Free Personal Care Allowance. Is SEVENTEEN MONTHS a record?

How long did your local authority take to process your Personal Care Allowance or Self-directed Support entitlement? Did they fail completely to do so? Do you believe that they failed to assess the care needs of a family member or friend simply to avoid processing and paying their statutory entitlement? Get in touch and let us know and, together, we will compile a league table of Scotland’s worst-offending councils.

Perhaps, you are one of many social workers in modern Scotland who thought they would be able to make a difference to people’s lives but find that you are being paid to deny people the social care they need. Does your council chief executive preside over a culture of fear? Have you considered blowing the whistle? Do you believe that your career would be at risk for doing so? Have you raised your concerns with your professional body?

These scenarios describe some of the experiences of people who have reached out to BetterCareScotland. We find that such scenarios are systematic at councils where they are observed. Your feedback will help to determine if these experiences reflect only the culture of specific councils or are system-wide in Scotland. Together, we will influence the form and structure of Scotland’s National Care Plan to ensure that Scotland delivers on its promises to its people.

It is in the interests of everyone in Scotland that the proposed National Care Service works for each and every one of us without exception so that people in Scotland will no longer be denied the care they desperately need or experience poor delivery or provision of care without recourse to a remedy.

Be in the loop and receive updates from BetterCareScotland today!

Love and Peace!

Posted on May 21, 2022 by editor

Care Homes for Older People in Scotland, Governance, Human rights, National Care Service, Public Sector, Risk Management, Scotland, Scottish councils, Social Care Regulation

Care Needs, Care Plan, Compliance, disclosures, Governance, regulation, Risk Management, Social Work, stonewall, Whistleblower

One woman tells her story … #5

Of misplaced trust. Of bureaucracy & cover-up. Of a social care system paying lip service to the needs of Scotland’s most vulnerable.

SCOTLAND’S HIPPY DIPPY CARE INSPECTORATE

SO LAST CENTURY

LET BETTERCARESCOTLAND KNOW

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” … Maya Angelou

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Ticking time-bombs!

Ticking time-bombs at the heart of Scotland’s social care system!

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” … Maya Angelou

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One woman tells her story … #3

Of misplaced trust. Of bureaucracy & cover-up. Of a social care system paying lip service to the needs of Scotland’s most vulnerable.

Extract III: caught in the Council’s social care web

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” … Maya Angelou

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One woman tells her story … #2

Of misplaced trust. Of bureaucracy & cover-up. Of a social care system paying lip service to the needs of Scotland’s most vulnerable.

Extract II: this great age!

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” … Maya Angelou

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One woman tells her story … #1

Of misplaced trust. Of bureaucracy & cover-up. Of a social care system paying lip service to the needs of Scotland’s most vulnerable.

Extract I: being silenced

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” Maya Angelou

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” … Maya Angelou

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Shining a light on Scotland’s broken social care system!

HELP TO SHINE A LIGHT ON SCOTLAND’S BROKEN SOCIAL CARE SYSTEM!

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