Care Home Residents Call for Greater Inclusion 

LONDON, 4th May 2010 – The largest ever opinion poll of UK care home residents published today reveals that this group feels in real danger of being forgotten by the communities in which they live. There are currently 419,000 people being cared for in residential homes across the UK. Over the next 10 years, this will grow by 22% to around 550,000, becoming an even more significant part of society. 

The research by Southern Cross Healthcare, the UK’s largest provider of care homes, shows care home residents feel ignored by MPs in the run up to this week’s election, with 65% feeling that their interests are not being looked after. Nearly half (49%) feel they don’t have a voice. Given their wisdom and experience, 70% feel they still have a lot to contribute but are hampered by people making assumptions about them because of their age.

The frustrations amongst care home residents are compounded by a sense that younger generations are not making the most of their opportunity to participate in the election. 75% of elderly people in care homes believe younger generations don’t value their right to vote as much as they did 20 years ago.

Elderly people are more interested in the fate of younger generations than you might think. 63% are worried about the future of younger generations. The research also shows they want families to be encouraged to support each other more and a solution found to successfully curb anti-social behaviour. These issues were as much a concern for care home residents as fighting misconceptions of the elderly or tackling age discrimination.

Professor Simon Biggs, social gerontologist at King’s College London, comments: “It’s clear from this research that there are lots of people living in care homes who feel marginalised and frustrated by the misconception that surrounds them. There’s a real danger that we equate entering a care home with exiting society and that’s just not the case. The future of social care is a challenge for the UK and there has been a great deal of debate on how we meet the needs of our elderly in the future. Before we can really tackle this, we need to change the way in which elderly people in care homes are perceived by society.”

Jamie Buchan, CEO for Southern Cross Healthcare adds: “The vision of Southern Cross is for our care homes to play a valuable role in the community in which they serve and provide local people with affordable, high quality personal care. Our priority is to ensure that the people entrusted into our care are treated with dignity and the respect they deserve. This is achieved through the work of our 44,000+ staff, including our specially-trained Dignity Champions, of which we have over 800, whose role is to work with the elderly people in our homes to ensure their needs are met through personalised care.”

For more information on this campaign and the work of Southern Cross Dignity Champions, please visit: www.schealthcare.co.uk/pollingtheoldergeneration. The full results of the Polling the Older Generation poll are also featured in a comprehensive report, available on request.
 

Article supplied by Healthcare Business