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Chapter 5 Findings
“I think within a certain degree it’s very good here like I think it’s
…to stay up all night really and they can say ……and there is no
problem really.”
(S07)
“The way I feel is that if somebody doesn’t want to get up until 12
o’clock in the day or 1 o’clock in the day, well why is that person
not allowed to rest on in bed like they probably did at home and get
up at that time?”
(S14)
Observations revealed that it is not possible for the residents to choose to
go into the garden themselves as they need staff to unlock the doors to do
so:
“The day room looks out onto the garden but has locked patio
doors.”
(General Observation)
One resident participant described how she had no real choice about entering
residential care:
“I used to get an awful lot of kidney infections and the doctor used
to come out and he’d give me an injection and ‘twas a bit far away
for him to be coming….Then after a while he said ‘d’you know I’ll
make it easier for you. I’ll put you into a home’ and he said ‘would
you like that?’ ‘Well’, I said, ‘it depends on the home!’ ‘I’ll get you
a nice place now’ he said. ‘X’, he said, ‘is nice and there are a lot
of people there you’d know’, and that’s how I got in first.”
(R04) (Barthel 12)
Participants stated that older people are adults and should be entitled to have high
expectations for residential care as they would for any other type of care:
“They are all adults.”
(S01)
“You know simple things. I do painting and music and I’m happy
with that – what do you expect in a home.”
(R07) (Barthel 8)