Director of Policy, Simon Bottery, said: "This is a shocking but fair report, which confirms our fears of poor practice and even abuse in home care for older people, but which also highlights good practice that can be built upon. It emphasises the need for fundamental reform of the social care system, along the lines proposed by the recent Commission on the Funding of Care and Support, chaired by Andrew Dilnot. 

“The findings echo the recent Care Quality Commission report on older people’s care within hospitals in finding that the ‘basics’ of dignity, respect and adequate care are not being addressed in home care. However, unlike hospital care, many home care users contribute towards the cost themselves, and this trend will continue with the increased use of personal budgets and direct payments.  So there is a clear and obvious need to give consumers much more information and advice about choosing care services, and much more feedback on service quality.

“At the moment, you can get far more consumer information before you buy a paperback book on Amazon than before you enter into a contract with a company that will be organising intimate and essential care for yourself or an older relative. Better consumer feedback would allow good quality services to shine through, while also helping identify poor services.

“We agree with the EHRC that too much reliance has been placed upon providers to self assess the services they provide, and that not enough is done to provide older people using social care services with a voice to challenge any poor care they experience.  We think local authorities should include in their contracts clearer requirements for providers to monitor and check the services they provide, and local authorities should reverse the trend to base commissioning on cost rather than quality. The practice of holding ‘reverse e-auctions’ to decide care providers should be outlawed.

“We think that instances of abuse could be dealt with under existing government guidance on safeguarding, but that requires a need for a more vigorous and proactive leadership and monitoring of social care than exists at present both locally by councils and nationally by the Care Quality Commission. We welcome the decision by the CQC to inspect care home providers, though we are disappointed they have only announced the initiative on the eve of publication of this report.”