BASW: Panorama shocking but there is a lot of good practice in the sector

BASW has described the care home sector in England as "not a good place" in the wake of an undercover investigation for BBC's Panorama revealing abuse and neglect at two separate residential facilities.

Speaking on BBC Radio 5 Live before the programme aired, BASW Professional Officer Joe Godden added, however, that plenty of good practice continues to take place in adult care settings.

Screened on Wednesday, 30 April, the Panorama programme Behind Closed Doors: Elderly Care Exposed showed footage of residents at Oban House in Croydon, South London, and the Old Deanery in Essex being slapped, humiliated and left crying out for help by members of staff.

Mr Godden told the 5 Live radio phone-in: “It’s very worrying that caller after caller (to the BBC 5Live show) is saying ‘I would be very worried if my family member had to go into care.

“We see the care homes, the care sector, it’s not a good place. I see lots of care workers and they often say to me ‘Oh I’m just a care worker’. They shouldn’t be saying that, they should be proud about it, and you get pride from people saying ‘Gosh, that is a fantastic job you do’. So we have a sort of downward spiral."

He added: “It’s deeply worrying that we are afraid of people going into care. Some people may need to go into care, they may have no family, their family may have disabilities, all sorts of reasons.

“Clearly, the sort of practice we see revealed on Panorama is absolutely unacceptable but there is an awful lot of good practice going on out there as well.

“The challenge and the issue is to make sure that everywhere is at least reasonable and hopefully everywhere is good because people will need care of some sort and if it’s not in residential then you’ve got the homecare situation, and we’ve seen similar scenarios in home care, of poor and very poor care.”

Click here to watch Panorama - Behind Closed Doors: Elderly Care Exposed