Ensuring eSignature Lawfulness for Addressing Harassment in United Kingdom

How to eSign a document: e-signature lawfulness for Addressing Harassement in United Kingdom

see my cat is right there just to start that that actually is an impure photograph that I absolutely love because it sums up what we're about we're about victims and that is an involuntary photo for us we use this every place and it's our it's our favorite one because it reminds us what it is we're here to do and what we what we're about now I've been asked to talk about lobbying and I've never been asked to talk about lobbying before we do it but I've actually never thought about it before so I thought I'd start by saying to you lobbying is intrinsic in the human nature we've done lobbying as human beings since we were so high and it's about trying to get somebody to do something that they don't always want to do but you want them to do it we're probably unique as a charity in the we focus exclusively on elder abuse and we do not do anything else except elder abuse but we focus it from the point of view of the victim we talk about the silent scream the silent scream from all those old people out there who cannot tell us for whatever reason what's actually happening in to them and they live at home and they live in care homes and they're different hospitals and they live in all sorts of places but what they do not have is a voice and we seek to give voice to them and I have to say to the outset there are a number of different perspectives about elder abuse that it's worth of always remembering there is the perspective of the abuser why they're doing it what's causing it and we have to understand that perspective if you want to do something about it but there is also a perspective from the statutory sector and there are times when we and our statutory colleagues very very strongly disagree about the approach this style and the thinking because of the third perspective which is the victim and a point I often make to people is it does not matter why you're doing it it does not matter that you're under-resourced or you haven't been trained properly from the point of view being on the receiving end of it it hurts it is abuse and that should be our measurement of whatever we're doing not anything else other than does it hurt that person does it harm that person and what do we do to stop it and that's our starting point we've been campaigning and we've been lobbying around elder abuse certainly since around 2002 when we really got going on this issue and you would think like I'm sure all of our colleagues internationally though we should have an easy task of this it actually isn't easy to identify what's going wrong and what's actually happening to people when we had our prevalence study and we've recently had it reanalyzed we came out finally with an eight point six percent issue on elder abuse that's half a million people now put that against over a million children a year been used where there is millions of pounds being invested millions of pounds and against what were actually doing to protect our own people and you have to ask the question why is it that we're not actually dealing with the issue of the abuse of old people with equal parity equal seriousness then we are actually with children and in fact I have to say to you we're better at protecting our animals that we are actually protecting our own we have better legislation in the UK and protecting our animals we've got 150,000 instances of Cruelty to Animals in a year put back against the number of old people and we do something like don't hold me to this unlike 50 million pounds to protect our animals nothing like that to protect our people you have to ask why that is and when you look at the profile of the victims of abuse and this is fairly consistent across all of our nations but the picture that we're talking about are extremely frail extremely vulnerable old women who are other victims of abuse now it's an interesting point for me the one I look at what we're doing in the UK around domestic abuse and domestic violence we forget old women domestic abuse does not grow old in the okay we have not actually got a head around the fact that we can actually be abused as an old woman in our 80s and 90s as much as we could in our 20s and 30s and yet we've got better legislation to protect people and I often wonder what does it say about how we judge our societies when you look at what happens to some of our old people and I am focusing exclusively on old people now in the UK I could say to you that we've got some aspects of legislation that should be working a lot of said yeah I've identified their domestic violence hi element of domestic violence should be could be addressing towards whole people and yet it's not and some of what we're doing and I wanted to share this with you because a point I say wherever I go there are consequence of social policy decisions that we take today that will come out and haunt us tomorrow you see how high those yellow bars are 15 years ago they were nowhere near that that's forced me to stop talking about neglect per se and talk about deliberate willful intentional neglect on one end and passive neglect on the other because what we've done over the last decade and a half in the UK is cut and cut and cut the services to older people and when I was running domiciliary care service in the UK what I could give to older people is nothing like what's available today it's almost non-existent the people who needed support at home did not go away they still need support today they rely on family and friends who were not equipped or skilled to actually deal with it so we saw a huge increase in what we call passive neglect unintentional neglect by family and friends who are trying to do what should have been done by Statuary care and is no longer being done by statutory care there is a consequence of the decisions that we take and we can't pretend that that's the case every time we say we can't afford it there is a consequence of every time we say we have to tighten our belts what we actually mean is we're going to hurt somebody I think we need to call it for what it is this is why from our point of view we speak out very strongly and very clearly on the reality for people and let's not mince it up and fancy the words and this is the reality we are hurting people and the fact is we're providing poorer and poorer care and I would say to you with any context we've got about thirty five years if not more of regulating care provision Damas really care residential care we're doing it worse now than we've ever done it we've gone backwards instead of forwards a point I'll say to you some point later in this is you cannot regulate quality into care you have to motivate people to want to do it and believe it with a passion regulation by itself does not give you the reassurances that you want and I know that's not what's being said regulation cannot give you quality care by any estimate of what I use when I think about victims I have to say to you our care systems in the UK and elsewhere are creaking at the seam and our commitment to protecting people is highly highly questionable we are making decisions at times that we know are actually not going to help anybody and we need to face those realities the legislation legislation is great and I have been fighting for legislation for ages but registered legislation without adequate funding without an intent to deliver on it becomes no more than a paper exercise you have got to want to make a difference and what I'm not seeing in what's happening in the UK and I'm going to split this into the nations in a minute is that commitment to actually make a difference and I think that's the motivation that we've got to think about now I have to say in most of the UK nations other than Scotland there's a mark reluctance to actually address elder abuse when you see what comes out from England from Wales and to a lesser extent from Northern Ireland people tell you about the systems and what we're planning to do in terms of the processes and that's that's what we saw for instance from our Wales colleague the process of the system they were not talking about the difference that it's making have we actually helped people is it actually effective on the ground because we can't answer those questions other that in Scotland where they moved forward in 2007 with a comprehensive piece of legislation that gave it structures and systems and powers of intervention that's the key point there's no point in us identifying abuse if we don't have the ability to follow through and actually do something about it and that's the reluctance that we often see you don't want to interfere in family life you do and it's domestic abuse but you don't for anything else that's the real active about politicians in terms of what we're trying to do we have created what I call hierarchies of vulnerability and we should never have done this people are vulnerable that should be enough and yet what we've seen is animals come before humans except foxes because if anything they like animus come before humans children can be for adults every single time and we're even started a grading of who's the most serious in terms of adults that are left is the older people as if learning disabilities it means mental health how do we get into them how do we actually end up down that road what we have to compete for protection well we're putting one group of vulnerable people against another group of vulnerable people this there's something fundamentally wrong with what we're doing and here's what I think I think basically we're creating societal permissions for people to behave in certain ways by not responding powerfully with a huge huge outcry we're giving permissions point I have very often make about nurses good nursing and literary council strikes nurses off yes it has got much better at striking nurses off but when when when are we going to start to ask the question what takes a nurse who joins the profession maybe 15 years ago for all the right reasons what's the path and it's often she what's the path that she follows to that day when she's struck off the register why has it happened what has been done to that person to take all that commitment and energy enthusiasm and turn it into somebody who's neglected or abused if we don't understand them then the only tick box we're ever going to have is struck off we're not stopping it we're just intervening after the event someone once said to me we're so busy pulling people out the river we're not going down the bank and seeing he's pushing them in we've got to stop we've got to stop this we have got to start preventing instead of simply intervening and that's about us us being placid and us being quiet and us accepting it and saying it's just a one-off incident or it's just the occasional one the occasional one is one too many the occasional one says to everybody else it happens it should not happen we should have to use this horrible phrase the zero tolerance towards abuse whatever that abuse is how does this end up in reality translate well let me give you an example of this here's a statement from a case that we were dealing with some time ago and it's about a man who had hid out and struck his wife now 70 years of age that man got wrapped in cotton wool daycare was organized for him his wife was put into today can directively he was given dormitory care service he was given a network around him because he was seeing as been a carer who couldn't do any more than he was doing actually it was a statement from a 25 year old who was seen has been a serial abuser of his wife and yet when I present it to people at being 70 they don't see the wife is the victim they see that poor old man and all the troubles and strife he's on them and that's how we're losing some of the abuse we're not looking at the victim we're looking at who's doing it and were immediately in our ages mentality thinking it's okay there's the reality of for me I cannot forget this case 81 years of age she called the police time and time and time again and they came and saw an old woman they did not see a domestic violence victim despite all the trade despite all the focus and she died as a result and that is not an unusual thing we have got to see abuse not the age of the person not the circumstance of the person we've got to see the beus for what it is and we need to deal with what's at the heart of a lot of what we're addressing today and that is age discrimination our ability to see old people as somehow lesser why is it folks that we all want to get old but we don't want to be old you will not find any losses I'm going to die young but you won't find anybody who says I want to be an old person you'll find lots of people's I want to be a cantankerous old person and I think we all want to be there but that's at the heart of our problems that side we have got to address what is happening in our societies and why are we marginalizing and putting people and hiding them away of forgetting about them or when you hear it next door saying I don't get involved in that whereas with a child screaming out you would do something about it what is it that we've actually done now I'd like in the situation in the UK to give you a very very fast overview what's happening to a horse race you're thinking about the in terms of adult protection legislation be thinking about how it goes Scotland started the race got through it and it's almost at the finishing point right now if we can afford fifty billion pounds to do a high-speed rail link from London to Manchester shave 15 minutes off isn't that about priorities and when we as a country launched attacks on Libyan army political here because I can we when we launched attacks on Libya we went to war in Libya do you know we fired 15 cruise missiles of Libya they cost us 1.3 million pounds each and they tell us we can't afford to protect our old people this is about the priorities that we're putting on our money and our expenditure and how we do it the UK is not a full country the UK can afford to look after its own people it chooses not to do something it places its money elsewhere I did say was political basically the reality for us is we need to change the focus on to the causes of abuse and stop just looking at the nature of the victims we've got to start understanding we deal with the causes not the symptoms of abuse because we don't deal with the causes this is going to carry forever and much of what we're doing is about dealing with the symptoms we've got to win people's hearts and minds this has got to be a lot about I'm regulating you to do it or I will take you to court between prison if you don't do it this has got to be about people who want to do it they feel that motivation that desire they do not want to do a bad job we've had you know to take the least crosses and the others that we've had of him how many people worked in these cross was there not one of them we wanted to come forward and stand up and say this is wrong and if there wasn't why not you know we had a horrendous place in terms of learning disabilities a couple years ago we got our panoramic and and we uncovered it all it took one man to go in there and say I'm not putting up with this this is not why I'm in the profession for and when you couldn't deal with internally he went to the media that's what we need people like that who say these are my standards and I'm not putting up with it I'm going to change it and that's what our target is and that's what we're trying to do yes no more the legislation yes we want good regulation yes we want all the rest but at the heart of it we want to change the culture the thinking about old people or what actually makes a difference so what makes for good lobbying well if you follow strictly what they tell you then clearly one of the issues is be clear or your demands are be specific and what you want to achieve and why you want to achieve it and make it simple because people understand simple messages much better than they understand complex mission messages so keep it simple I'm told the best way of doing it is about building alliances don't try doing your own get a group together to actually push forward and make a difference this is the theories I'm giving you oK you've got to be persistent you've got to keep going you've got to keep the message being driven home to ministers and governments and others about what you want or why you want it you've got to have champions yeah we set the Silver Line lonliness help iron up and we got Esther Rantzen in to do it as the champion we got so much coverage on it's unbelievable by the way the reason we did it is because one of the issues for us is isolation and lonliness creates the grounds for people to be abused so we reduce isolation loneliness we reduce the potential abuse that's why we did it but you think you're champions you need that people are going to stand up and be the public face of this and make a difference to it and you make it easy for ministers to agree now that's the theory that's the theory of it and what the reality is for us and this is this is the painful reality for us there's only one way of guaranteeing that anybody will listen to you and that's the panorama programs for us getting the media getting the picture into people's front rooms and keeping it in people's front rooms that isn't the reports it isn't people sitting down and chewing the fat or isn't this fall for it's the pictures in the front room is the only thing that makes the difference when we pulled off because we thought we'd done it when we pulled off the pedal in terms of the media The ministers stopped listening so the first thing I say to you is politicians only listens to the media it's a horrible thing for me to say and I'm quite sure there's lots of very nice people who are ministers but the reality is the only time they sit on take notice is if it's endangering them if they've got to actually be answerable to the public that's the first thing I'd say to you the second thing I'd say to you is that when you get the media others get involved we've got and we've got some great large large older people's charity biggest one being a UK aid UK engage with us on a lot lots of lots and lots of times but they really engage with this when we do the media work they really like that so you get other people involved when you do the media work and you get funders now one of the important things for me to stand here and say to you today is my money comes from trusts and foundations and members of the public it does not come from governments they cannot shut me up and that's the important thing they gave me a hundred and twenty thousand pounds a year for three years a number of years ago and two months after giving it to me they called me in and said you can't say that you own that money you can't say that we're gonna have to work together on this your response was who do I write the check to to give it back because you cannot be in someone's pocket and speak out for vulnerable older people you have got to be independent and that voice has got to be clear and specific so the final point I'd say to you is the media makes people angry and you need people angry about this issue not debating it not discussing it not saying how awful it is but downright angry about it how dare you treat people like this how dare you behave in this way who do you think you are doing it whoever that person is whether or not they're a family member whether they're a care worker or whether there's somebody justifying how it happened and how it went wrong care providers yes are responsible for quality of care there is no doubt about that but I happen to take a slightly different view than what's just been said which is I don't make any allowances don't tell me you didn't know don't tell me you didn't understand you've got involved in care have your own standards and deal with it from day one do I really hate is when a care provider tries to say to me it was down to training trained to do it you do not need training to know you don't treat one human being and another human like that that is below that level you need training to know how to use heist you did not need training to know how do you care for people and I really really get angry when people say that something you might notice Talia one of these the sad things to say to you and this is the reality for us and I say this to you for 14 years now as chief executive and abuse charity we have the moral high ground it means nothing that means I get a cup of tea and a cup of coffee in the minister's office doesn't mean I'll do anything about it you can command the moral high ground only to the extent you can use it and I can use it in the media but I there's no point in you sign up and within the arguments because when it comes down to will you convert that into action they'll tell me how they haven't got the money to do it moral high ground doesn't work it's useful but it doesn't work my second point use systems procedures and policies serve a purpose but they are not the most effective ways of doing it because all the time you've got people saying that's what the procedure says they're not using that and what we need is that phrase intelligent intervention how do I do it in a way that does the least harm to people how I do it in a way then make sure it's the most successful outcome and just as an aside it's the hope that this morning we've got a brilliant piece of legislation in England called a mental capacity act fantastic really if I could take the principles the Mental Capacity Act and apply to everybody I would because he talks about proportionally intervention he talks about stage intervention he talks about putting people at the heart of things we've got one problem with that and this all set up here for in terms intelligence vention people are so focused and assessing to something the capacity to make a decision they've not thought do they have the capability to carry it out so ever people assess some of the capacity and then walking away and yes they've got the capacity to make a decision we've got lots of old women I'm going to generalize did not shower on this we've got lots of old women who were victims of abuse because when they were younger the partner looked after the family income the partner did all all the budgeting and when the partner dies we might convert them accounts we might assess who that the capacity to add up no cost our minds the internet the capability to do it after all these years there's two sides of the same coin we've got to think capacity and capability intelligent intervention and we need and I love these Frances we need policy that's based on evidence what do we have evidence-based policy they will make their mindset about what they want to do and then they'll go away until the civil servants find me the evidence to back it up that's not what we want we want people to look to understand appreciate what's happening and then to develop the policy from there so we want policy based evidence not evidence based on policy but I have to say to you and this is my painful experience if you let them ideology will take the place of reality every single time and they will find ways of justifying what they're doing to fit their ideological thinking the arguments that I have heard down the years about people have the right to make choice in control because ideological you guys brilliant statement to make and yes it is what about coercion what about undue influence what about being in a family situation where you have no choices but you say any yes it's not enough to have ideological objectives unless you understand what it means in reality for people who were living it every single day and the bottom line is the vast majority of our abuse happens in our communities in our families behind the family closed door where we put all our resources our legislation our energy into the smallest part of it which is paid care provision why because it's a safest place to look we've got to force people to look elsewhere and see abuse for actually what it is miming sense we've got to see the thing is here's the point lobbying is not about being heard I've been heard lots of times ministers called me in we you know we had some people who were champions of older people when they were in pays they got in to become ministers and suddenly their championship whittled away they called me in they heard everything I was saying listen the word of a saying they thanked me front off they went so you've got to be listened to you've got to be heard you've got to be listening to got to be a starting point there's no point in being right you've got to be tenacious you got to keep on going because being right and making the right arguments as I discovered is of no value whatsoever they tell me I was right they didn't do anything about it you've got to be tenacious then you've got to keep on and at the end of the day you've got to be the last one standing we are the last one standing we've had 15 years of them playing and protecting people playing it safe garden and they've all gone away and we're still here when I still here were growing and expanding you've got to be the lot you've got to be prepared to say I don't care how long it takes you're gonna change we're not gonna let go until you change because that's fundamentally what's got to make the difference and at the end of the day this has never been about us and it never will be about us when we think well don't abuse where the stage you know what we think that's what we think we want old people fighting back it's not enough for us to be the advocates we've gotta make these owned by them and they've got to fight the battles because at the end of the day they can't argue with them they can argue with us that's love you thanks for listening today