Hertfordshire provider backs care home CCTV campaign

Ardale has installed cameras in their Potters Bar site and newly opened Welwyn Grange care home, after efforts from Jayne Connery, who founded Care Campaign for the Vulnerable (CCFTV).

Jayne set up CCFTV after "deeply distressing" issues with the her mother - who suffered from dementia - received during her time in a home.

"This started more than 10 years ago, when my mother suffered many, many negatives in care," she told the Welwyn Hatfield Times.

Jayne Connery at Welwyn Grange. (Image: Gary Eve)

"I started out as an upset daughter because my mother was failed. She had dementia so she couldn't evidence the failures or the neglect she suffered.

"There was no clarity or transparency. It was deeply distressing but I had this lightbulb moment about safety monitoring in communal areas.

"This keeps not only the vulnerable safe, but also the staff, and it ensures the providers are running a responsible business."

After many years of struggling to get care providers to listen to her idea, Jayne and CCFTV now work with homes across the country, including Ardale.

"This journey has been a very long, challenging and rewarding one, but now we are working with many providers who have changed their mindset and see safety monitoring as an extremely positive tool," she added.

"Credit has to go to providers like Ardale because safety monitoring is something they've always been a supporter of. I am very proud to have them as supporters."

Ardale have adopted CCTV at their Welwyn Grange care home. (Image: Gary Eve)

Ardale's head of care pathways, Robert Myers, praised Jayne's work and admitted "he can't understand why every care home doesn't CCTV".

"For us, there are obviously safeguarding reasons for having CCTV in communal areas, because if an incident happens that is unwitnessed, we can go back, look at it and see exactly what happened.

"At Ardale we can't understand why every care home doesn't have it.

"We're very blessed as an organisation, because we are a Hertfordshire-based, family-run organisation which only creates bespoke new build homes and can have CCTV from the start.

"For those providers who are trying to run care homes in old buildings, they might not be fit for purpose, but I can't think of any reason why people wouldn't want to have those cameras.

"You could speak to four people about an incident and they all have different perspectives, but the camera gives you a true image of what happened."