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Stevens, Emma; Price, Liz; Walker, Liz
2022 The Journal of Adult Protection
This paper aims to explore the concept and practice, of dignity as understood and experienced by older adults and district nursing staff. The paper adds a new, nuanced, understanding of safeguarding possibilities in the context of district nursing care delivered in the home.Design/methodology/approachThe research used an ethnographic methodology involving observations of care between community district nursing clinicians and patients (n = 62) and semi-structured interviews with nursing staff (n = 11) and older adult recipients of district nursing care (n = 11) in England.FindingsAbuse is less likely to occur when clinicians are maintaining the dignity of their patients. The themes of time and space are used to demonstrate some fundamental ways in which dignity manifests. The absence of dignity offers opportunities for abuse and neglect to thrive; therefore, both time and space are essential safeguarding considerations. Dignity is influenced by time and how it is experienced temporally, but nurses are not allocated time to “do dignity”, an arguably essential component of the caregiving role, yet one that can become marginalised. The home-clinic exists as a clinical space requiring careful management to ensure it is also an environment of dignity that can safeguard older adults.Practical implicationsDistrict nurses have both a proactive and reactive role in ensuring their patients remain safeguarded. By ensuring care is delivered with dignity and taking appropriate action if they suspect abuse or neglect, district nurses can safeguard their patients.Originality/valueThis paper begins to address an omission in existing empirical research regarding the role of district nursing teams in delivering dignified care and how this can safeguard older adults.
2022 The Journal of Adult Protection
The pandemic situation has increased the domestic violence rate against women and children significantly around the world. However, it is difficult to measure the accurate rate of increased domestic violence because of restrictions and limited mobility in accessing help and reporting. This paper aims to highlight the current situation of the novel coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and domestic violence in Bangladesh. It also states the challenges of the unprecedented situation and how to encounter increasing domestic violence cases.Design/methodology/approachThis paper is a viewpoint of the COVID-19 pandemic and domestic violence situation in Bangladesh. Accordingly, this paper includes a comprehensive literature review that summarises related articles and newspapers on domestic violence.FindingsBangladesh is one of the most vulnerable countries to COVID-19 because of its most dense population. Currently, the COVID-19 virus is spreading rapidly in all parts of Bangladesh. In Bangladesh, the COVID-19 pandemic is increasing domestic violence for women and girls. Because of the lockdown, financial stress and livelihood scarcity, domestic violence rates show an increasing tendency that should not be overlooked to ensure the safety and security of women and girls in Bangladesh.Originality/valueThis paper delivers information about the current situation of COVID-19 in Bangladesh and the challenges of domestic violence that have risen. This paper will be helpful to policymakers, government and non-government officials for developing effective social safety net interventions.
Gil, Ana Paula; Capelas, Manuel Luis
2022 The Journal of Adult Protection
Reciprocal abuse inside care practices remain under-studied due to their invisibility and further research is required. The purpose of this paper is to explore different levels of conflicts inside organisations.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is based on a self-administered questionnaire filled out by care workers (n = 150), in 16 Portuguese care homes.FindingsResults indicated that, overall, 54.7% of care workers had observed abuse, in their daily practice, in the preceding 12 months: 48.7% psychological; 36.0% neglectful care practices; 14.0% physical and 3.3% financial abuse. The figures decreased significantly as regards abuse committed themselves, with 16.7% of those admitting to having committed at least one of these behaviours. The highest figures were also recorded for psychological abuse (13.3%) and neglect (6.7%). However, there is a statistically significant relationship between abuse committed by care workers and abuse committed by residents. Overall, 52.0% of care workers reported having been the target of at least one such behaviour by residents.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper has its limitations as the sample consisted of only 16 nursing homes (12 not-for-profit and 4 for-profit nursing homes). The fact that only 4 of the 16 LTC homes were for-profit is a potential limitation both in general and in particular because research has shown that lower quality of care and elder abuse and neglect are more common in for-profit nursing homes at least in Portugal. The results were also based on self-reported measures.Practical implicationsA reactive behaviour, the risk of retaliation, after a complaint, the difficulty in dealing with dementia and the residents' aggressive behaviour, an absence of a training and support policy in an environment where difficult working conditions prevail, are factors enhancing a reciprocal process of abuse. The analysis followed by a discussion of potential implications to prevent institutional elder abuse and neglect, based on communication and social recognition, including better working conditions and training, and a cooperative work environment.Social implicationsConflict is much more than reducing an interpersonal relationship problem between residents and staff (care workers, professional staff, managers) and extending to the whole organisation. Therefore, there are still uncertainties on how organisations, staff and residents interact between themselves, and affect care practises.Originality/valueReciprocal abuse in nursing homes is an important area of research and this paper enabled a discussion of potential implications concerning the quality of care, which required the identification of levels of conflict, in an organisational system, including interactions, the context where care is provided, difficult working conditions, lack of training and levels of support. All these factors are important when considering elder abuse and neglect and this calls for special attention by policymakers and researchers.
2022 The Journal of Adult Protection
This paper aims to consider the relationship between disability hate crime and safeguarding adults. It critically considers whether safeguarding responses to disability hate crime have changed following the implementation of the Care Act 2014. Historically, protectionist responses to disabled people may have masked the scale of hate crime and prevented them from seeking legal recourse through the criminal justice system (CJS). This paper investigates whether agencies are working together effectively to tackle hate crime.Design/methodology/approachThe research presented draws on semi-structured interviews with key informants who work with disabled people and organisations as part of a wider study on disability hate crime.FindingsPrior to the Care Act, safeguarding practice often failed to prioritise criminal justice interventions when responding to reports of disability hate crimes. Improving engagement within multi-agency safeguarding hubs and boards has the potential to increase hate crime awareness and reporting.Research limitations/implicationsThis research was limited in scope to 15 participants who worked in England within safeguarding teams or with victims of hate crime.Practical implicationsRaising the profile of disability hate crime within safeguarding teams could lead to achieving more effective outcomes for adults at risk: improving confidence in reporting, identifying perpetrators of hate crimes, enabling the CJS to intervene and reducing the risk of further targeted abuse on the victim or wider community.Originality/valueThis paper is original in its contribution in this field as there is a dearth of research on the relationship between safeguarding and disability hate crime.
2022 The Journal of Adult Protection
The purpose of this paper is to highlight the findings of this research. A research paper was published in October 2021 highlighting results of freedom of information (FOI) requests sent to National Health Service (NHS) Trusts in England. The FOI requests asked for the number of incidents of sexual assault reported by hospitals where the victim was aged over 60 and the alleged perpetrator was a member of staff.Design/methodology/approachThe methodology involved sending FOI requests to all 206 NHS hospital Trusts in England requesting information on reported incidents of sexual assault against patients over 60 years old from 2016/17 to 20/21, where the alleged perpetrator was a member of staff (including agency staff). Along with the number of reports, the FOI request also asked for the sex of the victim and alleged perpetrator, whether the incident was reported to police, the outcome of the police investigation and whether any internal disciplinary processes were followed.FindingsOf the hospitals that responded with some data (others were nil return), 56 individual reports meeting the criteria of the FOI were identified. A further 19 hospitals advised that they held reports of such incidents but, under general data protection regulations, they were unable to disclose exact numbers, but they were less than 5, some hospitals said less than 10, so the research can only count one for each of these. The resulting findings are that there were at least 75 reports of sexual assault on patients over 60 by hospital staff in the past five years. The findings also show that whilst the majority of victims were female, 30% were male and that a disappointing number were reported to police – only 16. Of these, 14 were closed as “No Further Action” by the police.Originality/valueWhilst there has been some research into sexual violence against older people, most notably by Dr Hannah Bows, the issue of sexual assault happening whilst in hospital perpetrated by hospital staff has not been studied.