How Elderly And Disabled People Who Receive Care May Be Vulnerable

This essay aims to analyse how elderly and disabled people who receive care may be vulnerable. A vulnerable person is someone who is at greater than normal risk of abuse. I will also discuss how respecting people's equality and diversity provides the basis for supportive communication.

Elderly people are vulnerable because as they age, they become more susceptible to certain illnesses. For example, dementia is a condition that mainly affects the older population. As a result of this, their ability to take care of themselves lessens, therefore they must rely on other services such as care homes to help them with their daily living activities. Research shows that abuse and neglect is present in 9 out of 10 care homes. R

esidents may be scared to report any sort of abuse due to fear of victimization. Service users reporting abuse are put in an unfavorable position. Staff may label them as trouble makers or not take their allegations seriously and treat them accordingly or unfair in the future. Similarly, those with disabilities are vulnerable as they also need to rely on others to take care of them, and they may not be able to protect themselves from exploitation. Their disability can make them become socially isolated and subject to domestic violence or discrimination. According to Public Health England (2015) disabled people experience more severe and frequent abuse than non-disabled people. It could be argued that this is because abusers see their victim's disability as a weakness and use it as a reason to mistreat them. A functional communication cycle is necessary to not only prevent abuse from happening in the first instance, but also to identify and put a stop to it, if it is occurring. The elderly and disabled should feel at ease to air any concerns to their caregivers without trepidation of the consequences. Carers should focus on delivering person centered care and behold empathy when looking after service users. In line with the Caldicott principles, if healthcare workers encounter allegations of abuse, information shared should only be with those who need to know, and any action taken should be in the patients' best interest.

The Equality Act (2010) is a law that came into place to protect individuals from discrimination based on certain characteristics. These are known as ‘protected characteristics’ in the official legislation. Protected characteristics include things such as age, disability, race and religion. This is useful in relation to the vulnerable groups previously discussed, as it ensures they receive the same high standards of care as the rest of the population. In addition, it means it is illegal to mistreat them based on their differences. It can be argued that this law has given individuals the confidence to seek medical advice when needed and report abuse, as they can be sure that they will be treated fairly in line with this law. There has been measures put in place to help vulnerable groups who do not speak English utilize the healthcare services available to them. Patients can request interpreters at their appointments and many clinics now have use of an over the phone language line.

In light of having a more inclusive approach to non-English speakers, London North West University Healthcare Trust are the first in the country to offer their patients bilingual medication labels. They say that this service has given patients back their ‘independence in managing their health’. Institutions are now making a conscious effort to improve their services for patients from a diverse range of backgrounds, through various communication methods and equal treatment of everybody.