Care Rights UK

Care Rights UK is your care champion, the charity focused on promoting the rights of older people in care.

We want people to know their rights and how to use them. We offer information, advice and support to empower people using care services and their relatives and friends. As a community of families and experts, we fight for better lives for people in care. We challenge poor care, highlight good practice and demand a better care system.

Our highly praised adviceline offers information, advice and support on care issues affecting older people. Sympathetic, expert, totally impartial, and free, our service is there for everyone who experiences problems with care.
We also campaign for change in the care system through raising awareness of quality care and rights, holding the government and regulator to account in protecting the rights of people needing care, calling for reform of the sector so that the rights of people needing care are respected and calling for improved standards and regulation.

Margot lived in a care home where some staff weren’t supporting her to wear incontinence pads. She was regularly left in urine-soaked clothing, which led to health problems, causing pain. The lack of support to wash led to her attempting and failing to wash herself. We supported her children to raise concerns with the local authority, referring to her right to be free from degrading treatment under the Human Rights Act. The local authority agreed to move Margot, and her new home supported her to stay clean. 

We supported Bushra who had reported multiple falls her mother had experienced to the CQC and had safeguarding reports upheld, but no action was taken until a complaint by both us and her was made to CQC. Even then, CQC failed to use this information in the inspection report of the home. It took the death of another resident due to unsafe practice before the CQC found fault with the care home which failed to follow safeguarding recommendations and caused physical harm to its residents by not doing so.

Tony’s contribution to his care home fees was going to leave his wife unable to pay the mortgage on her own. We supported them to challenge the local authority’s financial assessment. Without our intervention to increase Tony’s personal expense allowance, his wishes to support with the mortgage payments would have been ignored causing great distress to him and his wife. 

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