Care Home Investigation 17 HOURS Between Meals

An undercover investigator lost half a stone in a residential care home in one week because meals were so infrequent and poor, a watchdog revealed.

Actors also found elderly patients were treated roughly, given poor quality meals and endured bad management.

In the operation run by Which, the team were sent in to four unnamed care homes in England posing as residents.

One actor reported that a lady groaning in pain waited 35 minutes for pain relief because staff were busy completing a handover.

Another woman was close to tears because she needed the toilet before lunch, but was refused with the comment 'this is a dining room, not a loo'.

Inadequate food, unclean and unsafe environments, understimulated and inactive residents and one case of possible abuse. These are some of the things Which? discovered in its investigation of care homes, where we asked three actors to spend a week of their lives in four randomly chosen residential and nursing homes. 

Although there is good practice in some care homes, poor treatment clearly exists. We also found that even when official inspections had identified failings, they were not always being rectified. This can’t go on and Which? is calling for a good standard of care for all vulnerable older people.