Care Services: Abuse of Learning Disabled

Lord Maginnis of Drumglass Excerpts

Thursday 13th December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Maginnis of Drumglass]

My Lords, I echo what has been said on the importance of closing these large impersonal assessment and treatment centres for people with a learning disability. Good-quality provision that is developed and delivered locally must be our aim and we must keep a watchful eye on local authorities, clinical commissioning groups and the Government to ensure that this happens. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Rix, for raising this matter this evening, despite his domestic pressures. Perhaps I may say to him that we hope and pray that Lady Rix is soon well again.

I want to focus on what happened to the 48 patients who were in Winterbourne View hospital over the years from the time it opened in 2007 until it closed last year. That will, I believe, highlight the extent of the challenge that the Government’s programme of action faces. The Government’s report shows that in March of this year, 26 former Winterbourne patients had moved into a range of social care supported arrangements and 22 patients were in various in-patient facilities. I am sure I will not be alone when I say that one learns with considerable anger how 19 of these people have had to be subjected to a safeguarding alert in their new location.

In September 2012 the Government again looked at former patients and found 32 in a range of social care settings and 16 patients in in-patient settings. There were initial safeguarding alerts or active safeguarding procedures for six people. One of these people, Simone Blake—then just 18—faced some of the most outrageous and inhuman abuse at Winterbourne View. This included being drenched in water and left shivering and shaking on the freezing ground outside. You may recall her story from the follow-up “Panorama” programme earlier this year.

When Winterbourne closed, Simone was moved to a National Health Service hospital, Postern House in Wiltshire. Postern House was just 40 minutes’ drive from her parents, allowing them to visit her several times a week. In June this year, her parents received a letter from Ridgeway Partnership, the health trust that runs Postern House, telling them that Simone was again the subject of a safeguarding alert and that four members of staff had been suspended. However, the fact that two-thirds of the former patients have now been moved into social care settings shows what is possible and gives further credence to the Government’s programme of action to move all those inappropriately placed in hospitals to social care settings by June 2014. None the less, the fact that a significant number of former Winterbourne patients, such as Simone, have had to be subjected to further safeguarding alerts is shocking and should not be forgotten, and nor should it be overlooked that 27 people have required support subsequent to the trauma experienced at Winterbourne View hospital.

What assurances can the Government give that, as they seek to move those inappropriately placed in hospitals into community settings, they will be kept safe and offered support by appropriately skilled professionals? This challenge applies not only to the former patients at Winterbourne View but to every one of those others that the Government, through their programme of action, intend to relocate. Forgive me if a note of cynicism creeps into my voice, but at a time when Prime Ministerial apologies are coming two a penny on time-distorted issues from the distant past, one expects a great deal more than that in respect of this existing problem. What is so wrong must be rectified on an immediate and ongoing day-to-day basis. I want the Minister’s assurance we are not merely going to pay lip service through a process that is delegated and forgotten about until we reach an accounting period in 2014. Can she reassure us that 2014 will be an effective staging post on a journey that has progressed with full government support and participation based on professionally led community care that is delivered locally? We do not want a token start date for the Government’s programme of action. The year 2014 is too far ahead if you are someone like Simone Blake.