FOLLOWING our story yesterday about the abuse of elderly people in a privately-run care home in County Durham, a disturbing legal anomaly has again been highlighted.
Age Concern and Help The Aged have hit out at the law, saying it gives greater protection to prisoners than the residents of privately-run care homes.
The House of Lords ruled in June that the Human Rights Act 1998 covers publicly-run institutions such as prisons but not privately-run care homes. How can that be right?
It means that prisoners can sue for breaches of their human rights - and frequently do - while elderly people in privately-operated care homes are not afforded that basic legal protection.
Nine out of ten care homes in this country are run privately and, while many offer high standards, we all too often hear of residents who have been abused or neglected.
It is, therefore, perverse for the highly-lucrative care home industry to be able to use a legal loophole to avoid possible censure for failures to treat the elderly with fairness, dignity and respect.
Earlier this year, The Northern Echo revealed that an inmate at Northallerton Young Offenders' Institution had been paid £575,000 in compensation by the Prison Service.
Despite making a Freedom of Information Act request for details, the Government will still not say why so much money was handed over.
It leaves us with a feeling that there is an imbalance of priorities here which surely has to be addressed.
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