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letter to the Guardian

My letter to the Guardian today (it won't get published but at least it gets an airing here and CSCI should take note of it).

Hello.

Your Society front page feature underlined (yet again, sadly and scandalously, with little notice being taken) the sagging standards in residential care and nursing homes. Anomalies which, as a retired member, some union representation allows me to witness first hand.

The other side of this is the way some private and some charitable companies rise roughshod over employees rights - not only in the context of employment law but, more craftily, in terms of breaching legislation which, like the Human Rights Act, the statutory organisations have to observe. Legislation such as the Disability Discrimination Acts and the Race Relations Act and their adjuncts which all statutory authorities now have to publish and abide by: the Disability Equality Duty and the Race Equality Duty.

While we (service user organisations) are gradually establishing that private and charitable companies commissioned by statutory authorities should observe these Duties via local authority and NHS trust procurement policies, for example, it mostly isn’t happening. It mostly isn't happening because of a corporate plethora of complacency and dearth of awareness and volition.

So, long serving experienced and committed care staff are being bullied and pushed into leaving - and a plentiful supply of non-English-speaking immigrants are being exploited in their place, unaware of the advantage the owners are taking of them.

That means while residents’ physical care needs are maybe maintained at a minimal level for CSCI inspection, less visible but at least equally important conversational, emotional, social and cultural needs are swept away like a Tewksbury congregation.

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