Creating a fairer Britain
Our inquiry asked for your experiences of home care. Your views have formed the evidence base that we have used to tell home care providers they can do better.
Around half of older people receiving care said they were happy with their home care which is great news. You gave us examples of the kind of care you like and the type of services you want. For example you told us you valued having a small number of familiar and reliable staff who took the time to talk to you and followed your requests to carry out specific tasks.
Sadly, this is not the case for all older people. You also told us about bad experiences of home care, many of which we think are examples of serious human rights breaches:
Our view is that nobody should have their basic rights overlooked, particularly when they are getting a service in their own home. This is why we think that the basic rights set out in the European Convention on Human Rights and made law in the UK by the Human Rights Act should be an integral part of the standards for home care. It is a guarantee that your home care will be of a standard that does not put you at risk.
This is made clearest by what we think these rights mean in practice. See our principles for good home care.
The Human Rights Act gives you the power to challenge any ill-treatment that seriously breaches these rights in a court of law in the UK.
We are proposing a number of recommendations to local authorities, home care providers and the government which we hope will improve the standard of your home care. You can find out more about these recommendations.
We think it is important that you have a say in the decisions a local authority makes about what home care you get.
We will be helping to provide clear information about the home care services available to you and the standards these services should meet and how they perform.
If you feel you are being discriminated against or think your human rights are being breached or you know someone whose human rights are being breached in relation to home-based care, the first step is to speak to your home care service provider about this. If this is not an option for whatever reason or you are not happy with the response you receive, you can contact the Care Quality Commission or our helpline on 0845 604 6610.
You have a say in the type of home care services that you receive as part of the assessment and it is important that you continue to have a voice. We recommend that much more consumer information should be compiled and made accessible about the quality of care providers and their specialist areas to enable home care users to make an informed choice. The Commission plans to produce guidance in 2012 that will help you to understand what your human rights to quality home care are.
Read our full recommendations.