There will always be bad apples but we can't afford to let the care system become rotten to the core

YOUR elderly granny, who can’t remember where she is some of the time, who needs almost constant care.

Your toddler, trying to stick their fingers in an electrical socket, trying to put everything they can get their hands on in their mouth.

As anyone who does it will tell you, looking after the very young and the very old requires incredible reserves of love and patience.

They say the measure of a society is how it treats its most vulnerable members.

Well, another week and another story about someone in a position of trust abusing people who they were meant to care for.

Ayrshire care worker Helen McCracken was convicted of physically attacking residents at a nursing home in Stevenston, Ayrshire.

Colleagues gave evidence that McCracken slapped one resident on the head, seized another by the hair and struck a third in June and July 2015.

All of her victims were in their 80s and suffering from dementia.

The story comes just a week after Glasgow nursery worker Laura Houston was sentenced to community service, having been found guilty of physically abusing toddlers.

Colleagues stated that Houston had tripped children up and drawn moustaches on their faces. Some of her victims were just 12 months old.

One-year-olds. Octogenarians suffering from dementia. These are the most vulnerable people in society, people unable to defend themselves, people who are also – tellingly for their abusers – unable to properly let others know what is happening to them.

It appals us that people capable of doing such things can be placed in positions of trust and power. People with children at nurseries or with elderly parents in care wonder about vetting procedures, about the interview process, about the taking up of references and about adequate supervision.

For this is not just something that affects the immediate victims. It affects anyone who has children or parents within the care system,who cannot leave the home or nursery without a nagging doubt in the pit of their stomach, who fear what might happen when they are gone.

If you think the situation is bad now, it is likely to get a lot worse. All of those things – vetting, following up references, supervisors – take time and, most crucially, money.

The independent financial watchdog The Accounts Commission released a report last week stating that, just to maintain their current level of social care provision, Scotland’s councils would need an extra £667million over the next four years. That’s to maintain a system that already allows for McCrackens and Houstons.

Of course there is the argument that, no matter how much money you throw at a system, there will always be the possibility that a few rotten apples will creep into the barrel. But then you look at the statistics and notice that, during Tory rule, allegations of abuse in care homes for the elderly have more than doubled – from 748 cases in 2011 to 1634 last year.

And you look at the fact that tens of thousands of care workers in the UK are paid less than the minimum wage.

Contrast this with Denmark, for instance, where there are real state subsidies and consequently much better wages, where caring for children is seen as a prized job, and you find that more than 60 per cent of day centre staff have a degree in pedagogical education.

They work with the language and physical development of the children and how they interact with each other.

And you begin to wonder if we are on the road to a barrel filled almost entirely with rotten apples. It is almost like a barrel filled by the lowest bidder, looking to achieve the highest possible profit margin, with the minimum amount of fuss. That kind of barrel.