Sheltered housing neglect and abuse claims rising

Over 30,000 allegations of abuse and neglect were received by UK councils concerning sheltered housing residents between 1 April 2014 and 1 November 2017, it has been found.

The data, which was obtained by BBC’s File on 4, also found the number of reports increased by 30 per cent over the period.

The government said it changed the law to protect vulnerable people better.

The BBC sent Freedom of Information requests to even council or health and social care trust in the UK, seeking the numbers of safeguarding alerts they had received about residents of sheltered housing and supported living schemes.

Just under half gave data, which showed that during the period covered a total of 30,785 safeguarding alerts were received - of which the majority were in England.

The biggest reported safeguarding category in the figures was neglect which accounted for over 7,200 cases, followed by physical abuse with 6,200 alerts, while there were 4,200 reports of financial abuse.

Michael Preston-Shoot, University of Bedfordshire, said: “There is a lot of abuse and neglect that is happening behind an individual's front door about which the agencies are unsighted.

"I hope government departments take a note in terms of whether they can do more to ensure we obtain an accurate indication of the prevalence of different types of abuse and neglect.”

A Department for Housing, Communities and Local Government spokesperson said: “Abuse and neglect is unacceptable and must be prevented.

"We changed the law so local authorities must ensure that the services they commission are safe, effective and of high quality."