Just 15 prosecutions for home care abuse out of thousands of claims

MORE than 23,000 claims of abuse by home care workers against elderly and vulnerable people were made in the last three years, but just 15 people were prosecuted as a result, figures show.

Around 500,000 people in Britain need home help services, but the figures suggest one in 25 people may be suffering at the hands of their carers.

The BBC File on 4 programme asked every council in England, Scotland and Wales with responsibility for social care for the numbers of allegations of abuse and neglect made against home carers who were contracted by local authorities to provide home care.

They discovered 23,428 accusations of mistreatment, including 12,000 alle- gations concerning neglect, 2,400 cases of psychological abuse, more than 3,400 allegations of physical abuse, and 400 claims of sexual abuse. Yet just 700 of the claims resulted in police action, and there were just 15 prosecutions.

Bridget Warr, chief executive of the UK Homecare Association, described the findings as “horrifying” and blamed cuts to local government budgets. Lo- cal government ombudsman Michael King also said there was a growing problem over standards of home care.

The vast majority of the allegations related to care of elderly people in their homes, with more than 9,700 involving people aged 80 or above.

The investigation revealed how some elderly people were left for days without proper medication or atten- tion to personal hygiene. Only half the councils contacted in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland provided data, suggesting the true number of claims could be far higher.

Although File On 4 said it was not possible to find out whether all these reports were valid and fully investigated, officially complaints to the ombudsman about home care rose by 25 per cent last year to 372 and 65 per cent of them were upheld.

The Department of Health said it had “introduced tougher inspections of care services, given councils access to up to £7.6 billion of dedicated funding ... and will continue to challenge local authorities that do not fulfil their duties under the Care Act”. File On 4 is on Radio 4 on Tuesday at 8pm.