Andrew Lowe: Taking care of the elderly needs the help of us all

It talks about a basic lack of humanity in the care system, with many older people being left in dreadful situations and too scared to complain.

Of course, this is a minority of cases. I know from personal experience of excellent care being provided – often against the odds – day in and day out.

But this is a problem we need to fix. Mahatma Gandhi said: “A nation’s greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members.”

Often the quality comes from the small things: a friendly doorstep chat about the weather, or the nurse making sure a patient eats.

But I’m not sure we can fix the problem in the usual way.

It’s a big issue for our society. It’s not about levels of pay or a lack of education. Indeed, it is often thought that the decline in caring among nurses dates from the introduction of an all-graduate nursing profession. It’s about alienation, or a form of dissociation where actions and emotions become in some way separated.

We can’t legislate or design policy to make people care, and we can’t train people to care either.

Yes, we can close the loophole that would make human rights legislation apply to all who receive home care (not just those who receive it directly from councils); we can, and will, support the Care Inspectorate in making unannounced visits to care providers.

We are serious in this intent, but if we want to truly address this fundamental issue with today’s society, we have to think big and start small.

Maybe we should all realise that we all have it within ourselves to make a difference. We should expect more, demand better, be better and do what we can in our own ways to ensure that people who need our help are treated the way we would like to be treated.

After all, one day it might just be us stranded, “not waving but drowning”.

• Andrew Lowe is president of the Association of Directors of Social Work.