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Bring back lay visitors
• COUNCILLOR Catherine West has suggested that councillors should be able to make observations of care homes through unannounced visits, when they could also fulfil their councillor role by soliciting comments or complaints from any willing resident.
Such visits would supplement the role of government inspectors who, I understand, are mainly concerned with conditions in the home, such as their proper maintenance and hygiene, rather than residents’ satisfaction or criticisms. Such unannounced visits used to be made by volunteer lay visitors from Islington Age Concern, some of whose excellently informative and sensitive reports I have read. This scheme was discontinued when the council stopped providing background funding. There is, of course, an advantage in visits by people from an independent charitable organisation, since residents often fear that adverse comments made to an official inspector will be reported to the home’s manager, who might then regard the informant suspiciously.
Councillor John Gilbert is in one way surprisingly self-contradictory: he objects to Cllr West’s suggestion but then goes on to justify his and other councillors “building a relationship” with the care homes in their wards, which would presumably entail visiting them (Fuss-free care checks, February 15).
I believe Age Concern’s independent lay visitors scheme is the best residents’ safeguard available, even though, as Cllr Gilbert remarks, it could be hard for any visitor to detect some instances of abuse. So I hope Islington Age Concern may be once again adequately funded and willing to re-introduce its lay visitor scheme.
Several homes I have seen myself, in this area (including Cheverton Lodge) and others, seem quite luxuriously equipped and well organised. The recent death of one inmate has, however, provoked questions about the adequacy of care staff training, but we are now assured by the home’s management that this issue is already being addressed.
The bad apples among care homes revealed by the press may well be exceptional, but the need for all residents’ protection remains a council responsibility about which we would appreciate more information and reassurance.
Angela Sinclair Islington Pensioners’ Forum
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