Page 26 - CL winter 2023 for web

home life

The true meaning of home

Many people living in the community are often, in reality, housed or normal lives in homes in the
in mini institutions. We need to think carefully about what we community, elevating autonomy,
independence, person-centred care
mean by an ordinary home, says Lucy Series and choice and control.
The problem is that many people
living in care homes, supported
living or private homes do not
enjoy the autonomy, independence,
fter my son was person-centred care, choice and
born two years control the pioneers of community
ago, I had to stay living aspired to.
in hospital for a Some do – and we need to hold
while. Despite on to this, because realising this for
fantastic care on everyone should be the central aim
Athe delivery ward, of social care.
the postnatal wards were grim, The dismaying reality is that
particularly during Covid. many community settings are, in
Us mothers were ruled by an effect, mini institutions.
institutional clock that dictated Some living arrangements are so
when we slept (rarely), woke up restrictive that, following the a
(early), got pain relief medication supreme court decision in 2014
(not until the trolley came around) case ( P v Cheshire West & Chester
and when we should be up and Council; P & Q v Surrey County
about, regardless of pain. Council [2014] UKSC 19), the
Some midwives and auxiliaries residents are legally categorised as
were kind, but others approached being deprived of their liberty.
us as problems to be managed, life I enjoy in my home came More people are detained in
patronised, perhaps even punished. shortly after I finished writing a Britain’s care homes than in its
Nobody even bothered to tell us book, Deprivation of Liberty in the prisons. There are more than
when the hospital decided to ban Shadows of the Institution. 80,000 people in prison in England
our partners’ visits. I commissioned artist Grace and Wales. In 2021-22, there were
Late one night, in pain and Currie to produce images to 88,960 applications to authorise
distress, I discharged myself. support some of the book’s themes. deprivation of liberty in nursing
Arriving home, I was struck by The book tells of how, not so homes and 80,225 from residential
the contrasts: here was a place long ago, hundreds of thousands of care homes – a total of more than
where I felt loved and safe, people spent their lives in large 168,000 applications.
and belonged. institutions. These ranged from While local authority backlogs
Welcome home bunting on the 19th century asylums and meant not all the applications were
wall, a bed made up downstairs workhouses to 20th century authorised and some may relate to
until I could manage stairs, mince “mental deficiency colonies”, later the same person, it is clear that a
pies by the fire, tea in my favourite called “mental handicap hospitals”.
mug, the cat curled up next to the Sociolegal historian Clive
baby’s basket. Unsworth calls this the carceral era.
Pain relief when needed, not During the second half of the 20th
on somebody else’s clock. The century, these large institutions were
privacy to cry, yet people around gradually closed and the buildings
for support. demolished or repurposed.
I could rest, relax and enjoy the People now lived in the
new addition to our family. When I community, in a variety of settings
took a turn for the worse later that from care homes to supported Grace Currie: artwork; Helter Skelter: photography
week and was offered a hospital living, with some in an ordinary
bed, I preferred to stay at home. house or flat.
This powerful contrast between Unsworth called this the
the inner workings and subjective post-carceral era, an era of policies
experience of an institution and the and initiatives promoting ordinary

26 Community Living winter 2023 vol 36 no 2