A Which? investigation into the UK's care homes found poor standards of care in the homes visited with inadequate food, poor safety methods and in one case, potential abuse.

Three actors spent a week in four residential and nursing homes which were chosen at random. The survey investigated the care home's attitude to food and discovered wide variations in quality. One care home that was investigated gave food supplement drinks to all residents which, on later analysis, were found to be a supplement which is prescribed by GPs to malnourished people, but which is not recommended for general use.

The overriding feeling from those actors who spent time in the care homes was that giving the supplements to residents before their meals suggested that staff were concerned merely to suppress a resident's appetite rather than provide anything nutritionally appropriate.  On one occasion a dietician, posing as a relative, saw two residents who clearly needed help to eat their meals being left to their own devises and she also observed that generally portions were too small and had inadequate calories and protein.

One of the homes in question provided a sample menu in its glossy promotional brochure but the meals actually offered to residents bore no relation to what it claimed to offer. One of the actors who posed as a resident said he lost half a stone in one week. However, the other home, by contrast, had a much better range of food with home-made cakes and Horlicks for residents in the evening. With such wide variations across just four care homes, it is reasonable to expect that to be the case across the many homes operating throughout the country.