People with Learning Disabilities (Abuse)

Debate between Tom Clarke and Fiona Mactaggart

Monday 3rd September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

I am pleased that the Member in whose constituency Winterbourne View was—I know he has worked very hard on the issue—has intervened, and I am sure that the House will take careful note of what he has said.

Among the abuses that “Panorama” thought important were the following: patients were forced to have showers while fully clothed; mouthwash was poured into a patient’s eyes; a patient had a bucket of cold water poured over her and was forced to sit outside in the cold; patients were dragged along the floor; a patient was repeatedly punched; and a patient was driven to attempt suicide, and was subsequently mocked. That establishes that vulnerable people were tortured for the amusement of men and women guilty of an inhuman and monstrous series of crimes.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

The thing that struck me about the Winterbourne View case was that the individual incidents of torture meted out to the people who were being assessed there—my right hon. Friend is right to describe it as torture—was the same torture as was meted out to residents in a care home on the border of my constituency, which, like Winterbourne View, had many residents whose families were miles and miles away. Is my right hon. Friend, like me, shocked to learn that the Department of Health has no central register of out-of-area placements of people with learning disabilities? Will he, in the course of his remarks, ask the Minister if he will ensure that we have national figures about where people are sent, miles away from their families who want to protect them, into institutions such as Winterbourne View?

[Mr Clarke]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. On these matters she shows a great humanitarian understanding, and the very point that she raises was raised with me today by families who came down to London from all over the UK because of this debate. My hon. Friend should know that she has considerable support.

The harrowing examples that are given, and there are many more, of depraved activity that some will inflict on the most vulnerable among us are almost impossible to comprehend. My hon. Friend outlines some of the reasons for that. The courts will deal with those responsible, and that is how it should be. Families of the victims may find solace when the guilty are sentenced, but what of those who seek no vengeance? What of those who take the view that such abuse should never have happened and want to know why it did happen? It is fair to say that we all want to know who was responsible for presiding over this human crisis. How far and how wide does culpability spread?

We cannot erase the evidence of abuse, where and when it happened. We cannot undo the pain, the suffering and humiliating experience endured by people with learning disabilities, and we most certainly cannot leave it to the monolithic bureaucratic machine to ensure that such abuses never occur again. We have completely and unmistakably failed to protect adults in many aspects of their character where we see that their mental capacity is that of a child.

Winterbourne View was operated by a company called Castlebeck Care Ltd, which charged the public purse an average of £3,500 per patient per week for the services that it provided. For that amount of money, a person could stay in the Ritz hotel. For that amount of money, Castlebeck Care Ltd saw a turnover of £3.7 million per year from Winterbourne View. We should know what that money was spent on. We do not know, but the Department of Health should be able to solicit this information and put it into the public domain—again, a point that the parents whom I met today made loudly and clearly. It is only then that a proper, informed judgment can be made of whether the reason for being of those who are providing such services is the pursuit of profit or patient care.

As I said, I met today families who related their own experience. What they told me is that questions and challenges must be addressed to local councils and local health authorities, which have a crucial role. The Improving Health and Lives organisation published a report written by Professor Emerson of Lancaster university, which analysed the Care Quality Commission’s investigations into 150 care providers. Professor Emerson established that only one in seven patients were being supported in an environment that was fully compliant with statutory regulations. He also established that units operated directly by the NHS were more likely to be compliant than those that were out to make a profit. Half the units investigated did not meet those important statutory levels of care.

The Care Quality Commission knew exactly what was going on. Reading through the material, it is impossible not to conclude that its inaction was simply shocking. It presided over the shambolic and chaotic delivery of vital care services. It was appalling when not even lip service was paid to the adherence to statutory regulations or the basic minimum levels of care. Prior to the abuses at Winterbourne View, there were months and months when the commission carried out no inspections at all. Its self-described “light-touch regulation” is part of the reason these abuses occurred. Winterbourne View was inspected only once every two years in the absence of any complaints. Clearly, that is profoundly unacceptable. The commission was also affected by the coalition Government’s civil service recruitment freeze, which resulted in it having fewer inspectors than it clearly required.

Inspectors must increase the pressure in care units that are underperforming. Inspections must occur more regularly and without warning. There must be stiffer penalties for care providers for non-compliance with their statutory obligations. The commission must be relentless when it comes to investigating care providers that cause concern. Of course, as we all know, Winterbourne View was closed down, but how many people know that Castlebeck Care Ltd had two other units closed down as a result of serious concerns about the level of care? The “Panorama” documentary not only exposed Winterbourne View; it laid bare the unbelievable ineptitude of the commission, which was utterly incapable of taking action in all three units before the scandal was exposed. In my view, the new mantra should be, “Inspections will occur anywhere at any time and without prior notice.”