In some areas, if a big supermarket opens, half the staff disappear because they can get better pay

Alison Clarke

During a series of more than 50 seminars with care home workers, Counsel and Care also heard of residents being deprived of walking frames and rails placed around their beds to control movement.

Ms Clarke said: "You could say that putting someone in a bed with cot sides so they can't get out is assault, it's imprisoning them.

"It would be considered assault if it was done to you or me, but if it's done to an 80-year-old with dementia it's considered ordinary."

Staff shortages

Ms Clarke said some 500,000 elderly Britons live in care homes, but there are currently no national guidelines enforcing a minimum standard of care.

Substituting chemical management for good care denies older people their dignity

Paul Burstow Lib Dem MP

Counsel and Care hopes that will change when a new National Care Standards Commission to regulate the industry begins work in April.

It said staff shortages are one of the biggest causes of the misuse of restraint, and called for better training and pay for care home staff.

Ms Clarke said: "There's a real problem in some areas with staff shortages. It's seen as a low status occupation, but it's very hard work and pay is often very low.

"In some areas, if a big supermarket opens, half the staff disappear because they can get better pay."

Calling for league tables showing the number of restraints used, the charity said similar close monitoring of homes in the US had led to better care for residents.

'Unacceptable'

The findings of the report were backed by the charity Action on Elder Abuse, which estimates that one in 20 older people are abused - many of them in care homes.

Its chairman, Peter Westland, said: "We are concerned about the level of denial that such abuse exists. The time has come for people to acknowledge the existence of this serious issue."

Liberal Democrat spokesman for older people, Paul Burstow, said the methods of restraint discovered were "unacceptable."

He said: "The over-medication of older people is a scandal. Substituting chemical management for good care denies older people their dignity."

Mr Burstow said the public needed reliable information about the quality of care in care homes.

The Counsel and Care report is published in the Nursing Times.