Neglect common in English care homes

The largest-ever survey of care home staff in England, led by UCL researchers, has found that neglectful behaviours are widespread. For the study, published today in PLOS ONE , care home staff were asked anonymously about positive and negative behaviours they had done or had witnessed colleagues doing. Dr Claudia Cooper (UCL Psychiatry), the study's lead author, said: "We found low rates of verbal and physical abuse; the abusive behaviours reported were largely matters of neglect.  "These behaviours were most common in care homes that also had high rates of staff burnout, which suggests it's a consequence of staff who are under pressure and unable to provide the level of care they would like to offer."  From 92 care homes across England, 1,544 care home staff responded to the survey. The staff were asked whether they had, in the past three months, witnessed a range of positive and negative behaviours. Their responses were linked to data from each care home describing a measure of burnout in care home staff. Some negative behaviours were categorised as 'abusive', using a standard definition,* and based on the behaviour reported, rather than the intention of the care home staff. The most common abusive behaviours were: making a resident wait for care (26% of staff reported that happening); avoiding a resident with challenging behaviour (25%); giving residents insufficient time for food (19%); and taking insufficient care when moving residents (11%).