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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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Structural discrimination and abuse
— COVID-19 and people in care homes in England and Wales | | Author(s) | Jonathan Parker |
| Journal title | Journal of Adult Protection, vol 23, no 3, 2021 |
| Publisher | Emerald, 2021 |
| Pages | pp 169-180 |
| Full text* | https://doi.org/10.1108/JAP-12-2020-0050 |
| Annotation | The purpose of this paper is to explore the significant and high death toll of COVID-19 on care home residents and social care staff in England and Wales. These mortality figures, alongside differential treatment of residents and staff during the pandemic, are conceptualized as a form of structural abuse. Arguments are made for the inclusion of structural abuse as a separate category of elder abuse. The paper is predominantly conceptual but it also draws on available secondary data, such as mortality statistics, media reports and developing research. The paper finds that the lack of appropriate personal protective equipment, paucity of guidance and high mortality rate among care home staff and residents during the pandemic is indicative of social discourses that, when underpinned by ageism, reflect structural elder abuse. If structural elder abuse was to be included in classifications, it demands a rethink of social and health-care services and the policies and practices associated with them and reinforces the government message that safeguarding is everyone's business. |
| Accession Number | CPA-210709201 A |
| *Online access to the full text may require a payment |
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information about this article, and many others, can be found on the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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