By Julie-Anne Davies and Bill Birnbauer Elizabeth Brophy's instincts are honed like a sniffer dog's. Her job as an advocate for elderly nursing home residents means that she sees, hears, smells and sometimes tastes things that often provide the vital clue to the standard of care in the facility she's investigating. It is there to give families and residents in homes advice and, where necessary, to act for them in disputes with proprietors. Hundreds of people contact RCR every year and, usually, their complaints are not frivolous.
Food is one of the main areas of concern.
If there is no choice of food or the food is bland or inedible, the quality of life for the residents is diminished. Ms Brophy said. Ms Brophy said. Most of the complaints that Residential Care Rights receives concern personal hygiene, continence, food, inappropriate restraint, drugs and, too often, fear of making a complaint. Continence is the biggy,'' says the chief executive of RCR, Ms Mary Lyttle.