Confessions of a carer

Shocking revelations about patients being 'drugged to death'

- by JACQUI DEEVOY

Whistleblower Claudine Long speaks to Jacqui Deevoy to reveal some of the horrors she witnessed during her 30-year career as a carer and explains how end-of-life protocols forced her to resign

I'VE been a carer my entire career and early on learned that, with the elderly, it's all about the end. They dread it but also look forward to it and plan for it.

Rarely do family members get to know what goes on in their heads, but carers get to see that, as we're there to provide emotional support as well as do all the practical stuff.

I was trained at 18 by BUPA, and it was the most thorough training. They were rigorous and strict. I loved the work, I felt competent and capable in my duties, and settled easily into the end-of-life side of care.

Matron ensured I had specific Last Offices training - how to contact the funeral director/coroner in case of out-of-hours deaths. My personal standards were set high to start with, backed up by a huge national health group, and our little care home won awards for being the best in their collection.

Skip forward 20-odd years and I started to witness changes in end-of-life care. I fought against them. None of us wanted the Liverpool Care Pathway, as it was obviously designed to sweep away - by that I mean kill off - the elderly in a very short timeframe.

I had skipped between residential nursing care and community care throughout my time in care, and the last residence I worked in had no end-of-life residents at all - it was just a posh hotel with staff on hand.