Elderly people are being routinely ill-treated by carers or relatives, says Lib Dem MP Paul Burstow© Paul Doyle / Alamy/Alamy
As many as 370,000
older people have been abused in their own homes by a carer, relative or friend in the last year, according to figures, exposing what has been described as a "hidden national scandal".
The number aged over 65 who are physically, psychologically or financially persecuted at home every year is likely to reach almost half a million by the end of the decade.
Elderly men and women across the country, from all walks of life, are routinely ill-treated, yet
former health minister Paul Burstow warns that their plight is often ignored or dismissed.
The scale of the abuse, and its rapid growth, has prompted Burstow, who uncovered the figures, to demand a series of radical changes in the law to aid the detection and punishment of those misusing their positions.
As it stands, social services are constrained in their ability to gain access to the elderly in their own homes when a carer is proving an obstacle, even where abuse is suspected. There is also no criminal charge of neglect available against those mistreating a vulnerable and older person who is judged to be of sound mind.
Burstow, a Liberal Democrat MP, told the
Observer that elderly people looked after in their homes enjoyed few legal protections and were all too often condemned to living their last years in misery, "out of sight and out of mind". He said: "This is a hidden national scandal. The thing that worries me is what this says about our society.
"There is a feeling that people who are elderly have had a good innings already, or that by the time that the abuse can be uncovered the victim will be dead. The cases that do feature rarely prompt the revulsion that follows cases of child abuse, or the system being galvanised to say 'never again'."
The former minister is due to meet the prime minister in Downing Street to discuss the crisis, along with the
Older People's Commissioner for Wales and Gary FitzGerald, chief executive of the charity
Action on Elder Abuse.
Burstow said: "The prime minister should use the care bill to toughen up the law and send a powerful message that abusing and neglecting older and vulnerable people won't go undetected and unpunished.