15/10/2012 Inside Out East Midlands

Hello and welcome to a new series of Inside Out. Tonight, we are

asking who is going to look after us when we get old? It's a multi-

million pound industry, but can you trust the people who care for you

at home? 23 of the care workers working there had criminal records

for offences including theft and assault. Theft and assault? Weren't

they checked? Also tonight, forking out a fortune

for care. We find some alternatives. All those worries that everybody

has about what happens, we know where our death take place. Where

we will die. And that to me is great.

Hello. And low pay and lots of vacancies.

Who cares and why? At the end of the day, you are looking after

people and you are caring for people and that is what makes it

This is Larkhill Village in Nottingham. The over-60s who have

chosen to move into this retirement complex have done so because they

want independent thing but also care on hand as and when they need

it. What if you choose to stay in your own home? How much do you

really know about the people who turn up to care for you? Inside Out

has found out that convicted criminals have been working as

carers. Mary Rhodes has been Peter Taylor is about to discover

the truth about his mother's death. I just want justice. I want justice

for other old people who have not got people to look after them.

Dorothy Taylor died less than two weeks after social services took

charge of her care. But her son blames himself. I was Mum's main

carer. When we got the care package setup by the Council, I thought it

would give me a break from seeing my mother every day. And I did not

go over there because I thought she was having care and she was not. I

blame myself now for that. At the coroner's court, a doctor

revealed that care workers could not have saved Dorothy Taylor's

life even if they had done their job properly. But it was made clear

that she was left to fend herself for two days because carers simply

did not turn up. There are a lot of Mrs Taylors out there who do not

have families like ours, who have got nobody to call on them and make

sure they are all OK, who just rely on the care people to look after

them. And they are not being cared for.

Peter is determined to find out why the care industry failed his mother.

And whether he should have done You contacted social services for

some help for your mum, what did you need? Some help looking after

her, someone to come in and make sure she was OK, make a cup of tea.

Give her some food or a sandwich. Help her with the toilet. Just to

give me a break because I was going over there two or three times a day.

Home care for older and disabled people is almost entirely provided

by the private sector and with growing demand, it is now a multi-

million pound industry. There are around 1400 home-care providers in

the Midlands. 50 are used by Birmingham City Council, which

chose Care4Uto look after Peter's mum. How much did you know about

the care provider, Care4U? At the time, nothing. I had never

heard of them. I just assumed that because the council were providing

that care, that the council had done the checks. But had they? And

what do we know about Care4U? It is run by this man, Imran Khan, an

electrician by trade. Now he is running the family business which

looks after 78 elderly people on behalf of social services. A

Freedom of Information request reveals Birmingham City Council

paid the company more than �800,000 last year. So is it any good? It

turns out the industry regulator did an inspection just six weeks

after Dorothy Taylor's death. The company failed to meet all seven

basic standards and inspectors spotted something else. 23 care

workers had criminal records for offences including theft and

assault. It also appeared that other carers have not had their

records checked at all. When the inspectors returned six months

later, convicted criminals were still working unsupervised in the

homes of some of the city's most vulnerable people.

I show Peter what we have found. Care workers had criminal records

for offences including theft and assault. Theft and assault? Aren't

they checked? It also appeared that other carers have not had their

records checked at all. Unbelievable.

The judgement is quite clear - the registered provider is failing to

provide safeguards. And these are carers?

How come social services continue to pay Care4U to look after elderly

people and is the company still putting people at risk? No one from

Care4U, social services or the Care Quality Commission would take part

in this programme. Instead, they Care4U blames a previous member of

staff for its problems. It says it has made significant changes, hired

new staff and learnt valuable lessons. Birmingham City Council

and the Care Quality Commission told us they launched a joint

investigation following Dorothy's death and carried out a series of

inspections. In January, they found the company still was not doing CRB

checks but was satisfied it had made improvements and are

continuing to monitor its progress. But is Care4U an isolated case?

Well, it is difficult to say because, surprisingly, 40 percent

of home-care providers have not been inspected by the current

regulator. The Care Quality Commission plans to get round to

them all by next April. Should we really be worried? Our Freedom of

Information request revealed that there were nearly 1000 allegations

of abuse made against home care staff in the Midlands. 325 of those

were in Nottinghamshire alone. -- 179. Here is a selection. Many

describe neglect, theft and errors handing out medication. Some

leading to hospital admission. Not all could be substantiated, but

amongst those that where, a carer who knocked a man down to the

ground and then tried to lock his bedroom door down. Another carer

locked a vulnerable person out in the garden and another put a

plastic bag over a care user's head. Does the care industry accept it

needs to change? To find out, I brought Peter Taylor to London to

the offices of the organisation that represents the home care

industry. I am hopeful that we will get some answers about this today.

But my gut feeling is that we will not. Last year, hundreds of people

in the Midlands alleged that carers had either abused them or neglected

them. Can you honestly tell me that you think the system as it is is

working? If you are telling me that there are 100 or more people who

are... Hundreds. I have not seen the facts, but if you are telling

me that is the case, then clearly there is a problem. It seems that

choosing a care provider is little more than sticking a pin in a list.

Absolutely not. It should not be. How do you know? How do you know

that you are going to get proper care because it seems going on the

Care Quality Commission approved list is no guarantee of

professional care? I think we should put this in the context that

most home care is very high quality and most people receiving home care

are satisfied with the care they receive. I would not go completely

overboard and say that everything is rubbish. But obviously, we are

very worried about any instance where care is not going right. We

need a fundamental review of social care and it has to be led by the

government, it has to be properly funded. There are a lot of people

in this sector who are working very hard to try and get it right and

there is still a lot of very good care, but there are also some

shortcomings which are unsustainable. Finally Peter has

been giving some answers. -- given. The industry that failed his mother

needs to change. Are you glad that you now know the truth? Yes. Before,

I thought it was an isolated case. Now we know it is not an isolated

If you are concerned about elderly care, you can go to our website

where you will find lots of useful information. You will see that

address again at the end of the programme. When it comes to being

looked after in our old age, none of us knows what level of care we

are going to need, how long we are going to need it for and how much

it is going to cost is perhaps the biggest worry. Mark Easton has been

looking at some alternatives that may involve more than just our

money. I wonder what it is like to be 80.

If I live that long, who is going to be there to care for me when I

cannot manage? And who is going to pay the bill? They are questions we

all ask because none of us can know how much it is going to cost. You

can spend almost everything before the state steps in. I am here in

York because in this city, some of the elderly have clubbed together

It is a simple idea. Before you get too decrepit, you can apply to live

out your days at Hartrigg Oaks, a community run by the Joseph

Rowntree Foundation where residents know that if or when they need

nursing care, it is available on site at no extra charge. But it is

not easy to get in. You have to pass a medical and one of the

leasehold bungalows needs to be vacant. It pays to apply early.

I'm 53. You made the decision to come here at 61. It was quite easy

for us. We came here because my parents had died and suddenly we

were the oldest people in our family. We came here and suddenly

we were the youngest. There were people 40 years older than me.

Hartrigg Oaks offers peace of mind to those who can afford it.

Residents pay into a communal pot, something like �170 a month for a

60-year-old, more if you join later. In return, they can be confident,

whatever happens to them, they will not be clobbered with care fees

they cannot afford. You pay the same sum effectively year-on-year

with small increases. When you are fit, you are paying over the odds.

When you do need care, you do not pay more for it. All those worries

that everybody has about what happens, you don't. We know where

our care will take place, where we will be when we are crumbling and

probably where we will die. To me that is great. It allows us to get

on with living. Of course, as residents get older,

they are more likely to use the site's care facilities. 85-year-old

Theodore has lived at Hartrigg since it opened 14 years ago. This

year, his wife spent over six weeks in the care home and while she was

being looked after, he also dipped into the communal pot for the first

time. I was offered and found, to my surprise, it was very welcome,

care in my bungalow. So you had been paying in all this time,

effectively paying over the odds while you were well, but now you

get it back? It seems like wasting your money, but it was not.

It seems to me that Hartrigg Oaks is a local solution to what many

would argue should be a national, state responsibility paying for the

care of our elderly. But the fact is that at a time of cuts to public

services, politicians cannot agree on where they can find the money.

The issue keeps getting kicked into The truth is that despite the

recession, Britain is still many times richer in real terms than it

was when today's pensioners were born. We can afford to look after

them. But in Westminster, seasoned politicians will tell you that

priorities lie elsewhere. Is it just too ridiculous to

imagine that the answer to this is just to put taxes up so we can pay

to look after our elderly? It isn't ridiculous to suggest that we

should use the tax system progressively to look after and

care for people in old-age. It is ridiculous politically

because nobody will touch it with a bargepole.

Why not? Those people are scared of arguing

about tax and spend. They are scared of the consequences at the

moment of the economic impact in terms of further depression of our

So with taxpayers apparently unable or unwilling to pay more for the

increasing care demands of the elderly, the search is on for ways

to provide help without the need for a large amount of public money.

I have come to Wickford in Essex to see one of the country's hundred or

so homeshares in action. An idea already very popular on the

continent. My husband died in 2002. I have had

rheumatoid for about 20 years. Gradually, I found I was getting

worse. My daughter did some research and came up with Share and

Care. She rang up one day and said, how would you feel about a man? I

thought, "A man? Why not?" United States pianist? Is it that guy with

the big rings? 80-year-old Iona was matched with

45-year-old Graham, an NHS worker. It will come to me. Liberace.

For the last two years, they have lived alongside each other in

Iona's home. He lives rent-free in return for spending around 10 hours

a week helping out. You see the advert and it says this

is not going to be a flatshare, this is going to be living with an

old person. A live-in carer, taking care of the chickens, doing some

shopping, mowing the lawn, a few repairs, a bit of company.

It has allowed you to stay in your own home.

Exactly. I desperately wanted to stay here. I love my house. I

intend to be carried out in my coffin from here.

You do not have a free board and lodging in return for some chores

kind of relationship. You have become friends. We are friends.

has been absolutely amazing. He has given me my life, my quality of

life has risen like that. We laugh. He makes me roar with laughter and

sometimes I make you roar with It is so nice when you see

something that clearly works as well as that does. It is not for

everybody. The older person needs to have a spare room. Their needs

cannot be too severe. Most importantly, the characters have to

be right to get that kind of special relationship. So it is an

answer, but it is not THE answer. We need an imaginative, joined up,

holistic answer that mobilises and supports families with caring, gets

the community involved, gets older and younger people as part of the

Over on the Isle of Wight, there is a unique social experiment being

piloted that aims to do just that. It is called Care4Care. Again, the

idea is simple. For every hour of voluntary care that people put in

with the elderly neighbours, they build up an hour's worth of care

credit that they can keep in a time bank and then use for their own

care later in life. One of the youngest of the 150 or so members

who have signed up for the pilot scheme is 36-year-old Lewis who has

been helping out 87-year-old Pearl. I have been coming to see Pearl for

about six months now. I have notched up 20 hours and I would

like to think that those hours are banked to go towards helping my

mother or helping myself if and when I need it. It can encourage

you so much to actually get out there and do something. The thing

is, my fingers, the top joint does not go over. So I cannot pick up

things properly. I spent a lot of time talking to him and he talks to

me. That is a big thing to me because people don't come.

Care4Care is the brainchild of Professor Heinz Wolff who hopes it

will play a key part in solving the care crisis.

I hope that over the next three years or so, it will develop into

quite a large national scheme. That there might be 1 million members.

The problem is whether the next generation is sufficiently keen to

ensure safety in their own age to invest the hours which will buy the

care pension. Here in Westminster of course, the talk is all about

cuts, austerity, not spending millions more caring for our

elderly. So the responsibility falls on wider society, on

communities, neighbours, and families, to fill that gap and help

all of us feel more confident about the prospects of growing old.

As the elderly population grows, it makes sense that we are going to

need more people to look after them. Across the East Midlands, there are

thousands of unfilled vacancies for carers and a concern that a

shortage will have a serious impact on the quality of care. In our

final film, I have been It is early morning. Time to get

the residents up at Birch Court. There are 32 flats in this housing

complex in Leicestershire. Today, a team of six carers is on duty.

people, we have got a real bond with. -- real banter. That to me is

what makes Birch Court. Other people just want you to sit and

talk quietly to them. Because we know them, we know how to treat

each person. You never know what you are walking into in the morning.

Sometimes they are in a bad mood, sometimes they are quieter than

usual. You just have to think how would I feel about somebody coming

into my house and doing this and doing that?

Birch Court is run by Hanover Housing, one of the biggest

providers of retirement properties in the country, but the carers are

You come in and you look after them and if you can make them smile and

make them happy and have a chat, it is a nice thing.

I think it is the biggest step in your life. You have to give up your

home, come somewhere new where you do not know anyone. I think it must

be horrible, really horrible. Also, it must be very embarrassing. You

have to be showered and you do not think about it, do you really?

you try and put yourself in their It was just the way it was. The way

it had to be. Although I was always the one that did the caring at home,

I had all my children, my husband and I had to do the caring. Now, I

have to be cared for. It is rather strange.

Most of the residents here need extra help, or extra care as it is

known. Les has been here since last June. He moved in with his wife Pat,

but she was only here for about five months and passed away. She

had cancer. Try and keep your eye open. He likes to do his own

Not everyone here needs care. Now 90, Mona invested her own money in

Birch Court to help those who do. feel that one has to put oneself

out. My grandparents died when they were

just over 60. And here am I, another 30 years ahead. It is all

very well having all these aids and medicines to keep us alive, but if

we cannot be cared for, what is the point?

Good morning. Ann has been a carer for 44 years.

Out in the community and in residential care.

When I was 14, I was at school and I started on Saturdays. When I left

school, I went to live in a residential home, I lived in the

attic. I was quite lucky. I have never worked in a bad residential

home, but I know people who have. It has changed so much. In what

way? Paperwork. You are writing things over and over again.

These days, every call the carers make is electronically logged. They

scan in and out at the start and end of each visit. That has made a

big difference. When you could spend a lot of time with people who

was poorly that day, you cannot do that now.

Many carers earn the minimum wage, just over six pounds an hour. But

it is not just the shifts and the pay that put people off a career in

care. It is all over the papers. The

other day, somebody was dropped out of a hoist. You do not see anything

good about care. You always hear the side that somebody has fallen

out of hoist or somebody is being abused and that is all you hear.

That is what people have got in their minds, that all care homes

are the same. What do people say to you when you

tell them what you do? What do you want to do that for? Normally.

Couldn't you get a better job than that? Is that what people say? I

have had that said to me lots of times. Wouldn't you like to do

We will sort that out for you. think people find it strange

because they say, how can you go to work and wipe people's bums all

day? That is not the case. It is being there for them, listening,

good communication. Demand for carers in the East

Midlands now has outstripped supply. The number of unfilled vacancies in

Nottinghamshire has almost trebled since last year. It is having a

massive impact on the whole of the care sector. Whenever we go out to

recruit, we do not get the numbers of people we really want. And you

do not always get the quality you need either. Is there a danger if

these posts cannot be filled that agencies will take people who are

not necessarily suitable for the job? My concern is that we will get

more programmes of the type we have had where care agencies that are

under scrutiny will be found wanting, it will be found that they

had taken on substandard staff who are not up to the mark. If they are

not up to the mark, that means the level of service being provided to

the older person is not good enough. Then you get bad practice and abuse.

I have met a lot of girls who have come in to do caring and they are

just not cut out for it at all. You have got to have a certain

something about you in the first place. I don't think most people do

it for the pay to be honest. You do not do this job for the money, you

can't. It is how you are made. You cannot

be taught to be a carer. You cannot learn it at college. It is either

there or it is not there. We are going to think about

having... At college in Nottingham, students

on this course are learning some of the skills that will take them into

a career in care. I think many people need a lot more care, older

people are very neglected in society. You have got to have

caring carers. Many of the students here are school leavers, 17 and 18-

year-olds. When it comes to getting hands-on experience, it is their

age that is holding them back. Residential homes prefer people

with experience. They are not always open to letting young people

go in and get experience. We struggle for our young students to

get into care homes for work. third of the college's health and

social care students will go on to look after the elderly. With our

growing, ageing population, who cares and why has never been more

important. People always say, you're only 28, how can you enjoy

it? But I just do, that is just me. I like to care for people and I do

really enjoy my job. Some of them don't have family so we are the

closest thing to a family they have got. You should not get attached,

but you do. Everybody is going to need care at