Protect the elderly from abuse in Huddersfield

Feb 9 2009 Huddersfield Daily Examiner

THEY call it ‘safeguarding’ now.

The local authority has a responsibility to protect all sections of its 401,500-strong community from abuse and neglect and is constantly updating its tactics for dealing with such abuse.

Websites imply that the local authority’s main energies are directed towards the protection of children – the Child Safeguarding Board taking most of the hits.

In the light of the Shannon Matthews, Charlie Senior and Sanam Navsarka cases in our area alone, this is not surprising.

You have to work down the web list to find the Adult Safeguarding Board, though its work is no less significant.

Part of the Kirklees team’s remit is to protect the growing number of vulnerable over-65s in the borough from trouble.

This can be viewed in the light of a major study by the charity Action on Elderly Abuse, which this week reckoned that nationwide, 340,000 cases of abuse of the elderly go unreported each year.

There is no evidence that abusers of the elderly are more or less active in Kirklees than elsewhere.

But voluntary and local authority workers believe they have everything in place to prevent abuse now and in whatever circumstances the future brings.

The issue was brought sharply into focus by the case of Violet Smith, the Alzheimer’s patient who suffered severe burns after being left on a commode filled with hot water.

The Batley nursing home where she was staying has now accepted it was at fault for what happened, but a nurse and two care assistants were cleared of wilfully neglecting Violet after a Leeds Crown Court judge this week directed the jury to return a verdict of not guilty.

All three worked together at Carlinghow in Batley, a specialist care home for elderly people with dementia.

During the seven-day trial at Leeds Crown Court the jury heard how in January, 2008, the 87-year old grandmother from Heckmondwike had to undergo significant skin grafts at Pinderfields Hospital, Wakefield. She died two months later following a chest infection.

Its insurers have now accepted liability as part of a civil claim being brought by legal experts at Irwin Mitchell on behalf of Violet’s son Rodney Smith.

Mr Smith said: “What my mother had to go through was horrific – made all the worse by the fact that no one could explain to her why she was in such pain.

“Her Alzheimer’s meant she had no idea what had happened to her and of course meant she could not tell us.