When families make the difficult decision to move a loved one into residential care, they trust that the home's staff will look after them properly, keep them safe, feed them, wash them and attend to their medical needs.
This is the most basic level of care expected but families would also hope that staff would treat frail and elderly residents with dignity, kindness and compassion.
To ensure these standards are maintained, families put their faith in the oversight and scrutiny performed by the Department of Health, the health and social care trusts and the independent regulator, the Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority (RQIA).
But as we heard yesterday in one of the most damning and disturbing reports ever published on a local care home, extremely vulnerable people were treated in the most appalling manner yet our system of checks and safeguards completely failed to protect them.
It was left to the Commissioner for Older People, Eddie Lynch, to carry out an investigation into Dunmurry Manor Care Home following complaints from relatives and former employees of the owners, Runwood Homes Ltd.
The details of the individual cases outlined in his report are deeply upsetting.
They include an 88-year-old who was the victim of a suspected sexual assault by another resident, a 72-year-old with pressure sores 'down to the bone' and an 83-year-old who lost ten stone in five months while, according to family, food was left uneaten on trays.
Mr Lynch expressed anger at what his investigation uncovered, findings he described as a ''horrific catalogue of inhuman and degrading treatment.''
It is quite shocking that in 21st century Northern Ireland our most vulnerable citizens, people living with dementia, unable to communicate in some cases, are being mistreated in the very home which should be their place of care, safety and sanctuary.
Such a horrendous catalogue of failings requires a comprehensive response from the health authorities.
What has been uncovered at Dunmurry Manor is an absolute scandal which raises serious questions for our system of regulation.
