Elder abuse affects an estimated 500,000 people in the UK.  As the population gets older our work becomes more vital and urgent.

Cahrity Details....
Action on Elder Abuse (AEA) was set up in 1993, by a group of practitioners who were concerned about older people being vulnerable to poor standards of care and abuse. That is not to say, of course, that all carers of the elderly are abusers or neglect their charges, but that in those instances where the occurrence was a possibility there was little, in the way of procedures, which offered protection.

Making changes…

            Action on Elder Abuse resolved to bring the issue of protection of older vulnerable people into the public arena with a view to setting the highest of standards and eradicating poor practice. Today the charity works in the following three areas.

Raising awareness…

            Bringing the issue of neglect and abuse to the attention of those who can effect changes is a high priority and so Action on Elder Abuse campaigns vigorously both at central government and local authority level. This has proved enormously successful and the Department of Health document, No Secrets, (a publication which gives guidance on developing and implementing multi-agency policies and procedures to protect vulnerable adults from abuse) owes much to input from the charity.

            In 2006, following the culmination of a two year Government funded project to review Protection of Vulnerable Adults processes, AEA has made a number of recommendations to Government including a call to give abuse of vulnerable adults the same status as that of child protection and domestic violence. (The No Secrets guidance, around which protection of vulnerable adult work centres, has no statutory basis – unlike child protection and domestic violence).

Raising standards…

            Secondly, the charity seeks to demonstrate new and better ways of delivering services and to meet this objective has put together a collection of training packages aimed at health, social care professionals who work in a range of environments (private, statutory and the voluntary sector). Experiences of victims of abuse could so easily be prevented with training which begins by reminding individuals that the most basic human rights of the people entrusted to their care are an entitlement - not a privilege.

            The training has proved immensely beneficial in not only making carers think about the consequences of their actions, but in giving others the courage to speak out when standards of care stoop to unacceptable levels.

Reaching out…

            Finally, Action on Elder Abuse has established the need to reach out and provide a lifeline, to the people for whom they exist. Today the charity operates the only free phone telephone helpline in the UK and Ireland for vulnerable older people. A crucial listening service, it also acts as a source of comfort as well as an access point for information and support. This is proving to be a great success and is providing enormous assistance, especially to those who have been daunted or stonewalled by bureaucracy.

            The helpline also provides the organisation with the evidence it needs to demonstrate the call for changes.

Where we are going…

            These core services form the basis of Action on Elder Abuse and strategic plans for the future include extending and improving the training packages and also developing further services to support our work. The helpline remains at the heart of the organisation and will continue to be the focal point of plans to enhance and develop the charity.

            Action on Elder Abuse has proved that it is making a big difference to the lives of vulnerable older people; people who depend on others for their most basic needs. But the challenge for us now, as the only organisation in the UK which deals specifically with elder abuse, will be to make these differences on a national scale so that, once and for all we put a stop to elder abuse.