The abuse and mistreatment of older people is recognised internationally as a significant abuse of elders’ human rights. ‘Scandals’ and inquiries into failures to protect older people from abuse in health and social care systems rarely address, and still less challenge, the influence and impacts the social, economic, regulatory and cultural contexts have on elder abuse and on the actions taken to protect older people from mistreatment. This critical and challenging book identifies those influences and the contexts to policy and practice in adult safeguarding. A core intention of the book is th ... More

The abuse and mistreatment of older people is recognised internationally as a significant abuse of elders’ human rights. ‘Scandals’ and inquiries into failures to protect older people from abuse in health and social care systems rarely address, and still less challenge, the influence and impacts the social, economic, regulatory and cultural contexts have on elder abuse and on the actions taken to protect older people from mistreatment. This critical and challenging book identifies those influences and the contexts to policy and practice in adult safeguarding. A core intention of the book is the identification and critical appraisal of the influence that contextual factors have on adult safeguarding decision-making. In doing that, the book argues strongly for the development of critical, ethically-driven, research and theory-informed policy and practice to protect elders from mistreatment. Drawing on findings of original UK research and framed in an international context, the book illustrates ways in which ageism, under-resourced services to older people, target-driven health and social care policy and services, and organisational cultures of blame and scape goating, form a powerful, yet invisible backcloth, to elder abuse, and to the actions professionals take or do not take to safeguard older people from mistreatment.