If your home care is less than satisfactory, you can and should complain. Asking a home care agency to fix a problem will make its services better for everyone. You do not have to put up with poor treatment or bad services. Your human rights can help you to draw attention to a worry or complaint about your home care services. The Human Rights Act helps to protect everyone from poor treatment by public services.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission useda similar approach in its formal inquiry into home care for older people. The approach was based on the European Convention on Human Rights, the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the UN Principles for Older Persons.

If you appear to need home care services, you have a right to have a needs assessment. This is set out in the NHS Care and Community Act 1990.

You have a right to get home care via a direct payment, if you are eligible for some money from your local council. This is where the council gives you money to pay for home care services that you choose and arrange for yourself. This is set out in the Community Care (Direct Payments) Act 1996.

Your human rights protect you from being treated badly. The Human Rights Act 1998 sets out sixteen basic rights for everyone in the UK.

These rights include:

• Right to life
• No inhuman or degrading treatment Right to liberty and security
• Right to a private and family life, home and correspondence
• Freedom of thought, conscience and religion
• Right not be be discriminated against in the way your human rights are protected
• Right to protection of property

More information about each of these rights and home care is at the back of this guide.

Home care funded by your local council or any other public authority must protect your human rights. It is less easy to use these rights if your home care is not funded by a public body. But you may be able to use other legislation, for example community care law.