In-patient Abuse: Autistic People and People with Learning Disabilities

Robert Buckland Excerpts

Tuesday 18th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

The abuse of autistic people and people with learning disabilities is not raised frequently enough in this House. I am glad to have secured this debate today to outline some of the issues and to stress the urgency of the situation. The Government’s record on the scandals I am about to describe has been appalling. I would like to begin with the experiences of two young autistic women who were detained in in-patient units commissioned by the NHS.

[Sir Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way. Before she goes into those two harrowing cases, the Government set themselves a target to reduce the number of people in mental health detention—let us call it that—by half by March next year. At current progress, they will not hit that target until 2028. What would be her words to the Government to ensure that they get on with it and start releasing people back into the community?

[Barbara Keeley]

I thank the right hon. and learned Gentleman for his intervention. That is very much the sentiment I will be expressing in this debate tonight, but I would go further and say we cannot just accept continual targets. I will remind Members that the original target was to reduce to zero the number of people in inappropriate in-patient units, and I shall say that that is the target we should get back to.

As I said, I would like to begin with the experiences of two young autistic women who were detained in in-patient units commissioned by the NHS. Their stories were told recently in a powerful Channel 4 “Dispatches” programme, on which they and their families spoke with immense bravery about the abuses they faced. I encourage all Members to watch it.

Amy is a 22-year-old autistic woman who was, until recently, detained at the Breightmet Centre for Autism in Bolton, run by ASC Healthcare. The unit is supposed to provide care tailored to the needs of autistic people that would not be available on a general psychiatric ward. While she was detained at the Breightmet Centre, Amy said that her eating disorder actually worsened and that “it’s all about punishment”, not treatment. Amy reported that not a day went by when staff members did not use restraint and that the threat of violence was used to make patients conform. She said:

“They’ve chucked me about…they will nip you, they have pulled my hair out, they will push your wrists down. When I tell them it hurts they do it more”.

After staff at Breightmet were told that Amy had spoken out in the Channel 4 documentary, they took her phone away from her. When she got it back, she sent photos of dark bruises covering her arms.

Amy was moved to a different hospital and the Care Quality Commission has taken further enforcement action against the Breightmet Centre, stating that

“if there is not rapid, widespread improvement”

it

“will start the process of preventing the provider from operating the service.”

The CQC reports there are still 12 patients at the Breightmet Centre, and I am deeply concerned that they may be having similar experiences to the abuse suffered by Amy. It should not have taken a TV programme for the CQC to take action, because the Breightmet Centre has been placed in and out of special measures since 2019. Amy had to return there even after the CQC rated it as inadequate in 2022—it was rated not safe, effective, caring or well-led.

Danielle is another young autistic woman who told her story to the Channel 4 “Dispatches” programme. Like many autistic people admitted to in-patient units, Danielle has spent not weeks or months but years detained. In one unit she was 320 miles away from her family. Her mother Andrea reported that Danielle had lost half her life—13 years—spent in hospital in-patient units. While she was held at the Littlebrook Hospital in Dartford, Danielle was placed in solitary confinement for 551 days—more than 18 months. She was locked in a room with just a mattress on the floor and drugged heavily. According to the UN’s special rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, confinement lasting for more than 15 days and lacking meaningful engagement constitutes torture. Danielle endured that for 551 days, a punishment not even inflicted on violent criminals. Yet Kent and Medway NHS and Social Care Partnership Trust paid to impose that treatment on a young woman whose only offence was to be autistic in a society that does not understand or support that diagnosis.

Solitary confinement in those units is so commonplace that data on the practice is collected and published by NHS England and broken down by the kind of restraint used, from chemical injection to prone physical restraint and seclusion. From those datasets we can see that more autistic people and people with learning disabilities are held in solitary confinement now than three years ago. That is a failure of care, and people such as Danielle are paying the price.

Danielle’s story gets even worse. Her mother Andrea told the “Dispatches” programme that during her stay at Littlebrook Hospital, Danielle was taken by staff members to areas away from cameras. She was then molested and raped. That is no isolated incident. Further investigation by the “Dispatches” team found that 18 reports of sexual assault and 24 reports of rape at Littlebrook Hospital were made to the police between 2020 and 2023. No charges have been brought in any of those cases to date, including Danielle’s case. The programme later showed Danielle on a ward in a general hospital being surgically fed through a tube, because she is now refusing to eat. Danielle’s mother said:

“After 13 years of trauma and neglect, she can’t see an end to it, so she’s been starving herself. She just wants this to stop.”

As the Minister hears these stories and listens to the words of those parents speaking out, I wonder whether she really believes that the right support is being given to autistic people. I hope that she can pledge action to help Danielle. I understand that Danielle needs housing so that she can move back to the community with support. Will the Minister look at her case, to avoid Danielle being shifted from facility to facility? Her life seems to be at risk. I have discussed the case with the family’s MP, the hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant).