|
|
Post by tarzanontarmazepam on Jun 1, 2011 4:18:04 GMT
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13548222www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b011pwt6The hospital is a privately owned, purpose-built, 24-bed facility and is taxpayer-funded.Up early and started to watch the programme on the iplayer, didn't have time to watch it all but what I did see was quite shocking. It's a specialist residential care home in Bristol supposedly caring for adults with learning difficulties. What does shock me is the years that this abuse has been going on with little action having been taken even after the abuse has been reported to the health authority by former members of staff. Arrests have been made...some of the abusers identified in the programme. Other than the sickening abuse what I also saw were patients just sat around in a grim looking lounge with nothing to do...no activities whatsoever, this place supposedly there to assess people and help them back into the community. Horrific.
|
|
|
|
Post by everso on Jun 1, 2011 8:34:28 GMT
And what did it say on Radio 4 this morning? something like £3,000 per person per week to look after them? Unless I heard it wrong. Those poor people - how must their parents feel too? It doesn't bear thinking about. I caught the tail end of the programme last night and that was enough for me. I did read the article in the Daily Mail this morning, however, so obviously the whole thing is a complete fabrication or vastly exaggerated.  |
|
|
|
Post by aubrey on Jun 1, 2011 10:10:42 GMT
Ah, but it was on the BBC first, and they're obviously biased.
Though I don't want to make political points here. The bit I saw on the news this morning was horrible. A bloke was saying there that the regulation of these places was eased somewhat about a year ago. I don't know why.
£3000 a week sounds about right, for what is supposed to be specialised care.
|
|
|
|
Post by tarzanontarmazepam on Jun 1, 2011 11:55:56 GMT
One of the better Panorama progs I feel and the BBC showing they can still be a very powerful medium when they get it right. I don't mind paying the license fee for stuff like this and I believe everyone should watch this no matter how uncomfortable it makes them feel.
|
|
|
|
Post by jean on Jun 1, 2011 12:09:35 GMT
Even if these people managed to make it look as though they weren't actually abusing patients when the inspectors came round, it must have been obvious that they had no training, and there was no kind of occupational therapy or indeed any activities of any kind being offered to the patients.
(Aubrey, Radio 4 is the BBC...)
[edited to remove typos spotted by alan...]
|
|
|
|
Post by alanseago on Jun 1, 2011 12:32:16 GMT
Are you having keyboard problems Jean or is it the Pauillac?
I am shocked!
|
|
|
|
Post by aubrey on Jun 2, 2011 14:23:53 GMT
Ah, I forgot that bit - I was really answering the DM bit at the bottom, and also trying to fill out my post, as I couldn't really think of anything to say.
|
|
|
|
Post by housesparrow on Jun 2, 2011 15:00:17 GMT
If staff are not properly trained, it is easy to see how some of the bad practice we same could become seen as the normal way to treat the patients.
Patient grabs Patient 2 and hurts him = staff grab Patient 1 to teach him how painful it is.
Patient 3 refuses to get up; staff physically remove her from the bed.
If you didn't know better, you might think this "right".
|
|
|
|
Post by everso on Jun 2, 2011 17:05:06 GMT
I'm not sure how patients with learning difficulties, or for that matter dementia patients, are handled. It can't be an easy job, certainly. But treating a person with kindness must come top of the list surely.
|
|
|
|
Post by jean on Jun 4, 2011 12:35:29 GMT
Polly Toynbee's on fine form today. Anger at abuse at Winterbourne View hospital landed harder on the regulator, Care Quality Commission, than on Castlebeck, the company that took £3,500 a week for hiring cheap thugs as carers. The CQC confessed that ignoring a whistleblower was unforgivable – but the regulator should long ago have blown the whistle on itself and warned its task was impossible on its current resources. This outfit was created from three already large regulators: now the human fertilisation authority will be added, and, in the NHS bill, Healthwatch too.
CQC's budget is 30% less than the regulators it replaced. In the past year it cut its inspections by 70%, taking a minimum of 120 days to register new homes. Its 900 inspectors are expected to cover more than 8,000 GP practices as well as 400 NHS trusts, 9,000 dental practices and 18,000 care homes. It has been told to recoup all its costs by raising the fees it charges all these providers – which limits its income. But instead of warning that it couldn't possibly inspect all these services adequately, when I spoke to them yesterday they claimed they had no cuts and everything was just fine. Terror at Cameron/Maude/Pickles threats against "the grip of state control" has bullied too many regulators and services into dangerous submission.
Shocking findings from an FT care homes survey this week had to rely on 2010 figures, as this government has abolished CQC's old star ratings, in its bonfire of measurements. The survey revealed that one in seven privately-run care homes rated "adequate" or "poor" in contrast to one in 11 among non-profit or local authority homes. Given the lack of inspectors, only now going in unannounced, that must be a grave under-estimate: wherever the vulnerable are in closed care the risk of abuse is high.
|
|
|
|
Post by aubrey on Jun 4, 2011 12:46:08 GMT
^^^
Yes, it was good, that.
|
|
|
|
Post by housesparrow on Jun 4, 2011 15:04:17 GMT
Two things puzzle me about that film:
Firstly, the staff made no attempt to hide what they were doing, and indeed on one or two occasions instructed Joe to do the same.
Secondly, why did so few of the other staff not report what was going on?
I am beginning to wonder if some of what we saw was part of a larger plan, though I'm not sure what.
|
|
|
|
Post by jean on Jun 4, 2011 15:39:04 GMT
One person had reported what was happening, but was ignored.
I'm puzzled by what sort of larger plan you think there could have been, housey.
|
|
|
|
Post by housesparrow on Jun 4, 2011 18:18:34 GMT
Jean, I don't know, but if the workers had known that what they were doing was wrong, surely they would have kept it from other staff, especially the newbie?
Suppose - and it is just speculation - there was a theory that someone's violence could be cured by meting out the same treatment?
We saw a shot of a carer poking at the eyes of a patient. I watched this on a laptop, so could not see what was going on, or the reaction of the patient. It could have been rough horseplay, but perhaps the patient had been poking at the eyes of another patient before the journalist began filming?
Most of us realise that responding to violence with violence doesn't pay. But maybe this place felt differently about people in their care, and thus created a culture where the things we saw went unchallenged?.
|
|
|
|
Post by sesley on Jun 4, 2011 19:30:37 GMT
it was a very upsetting documentary. the trouble is these places are run for profit,so they get cheap unqualified people who are just keeping themself off unemploeyment benefits. For people with particular disabilites people need to be trained and skilled in those areas for support and adivse,but they are not, particulary for autism which is so complex and need specially trained people who understand autism and its differences to be able to support the young people/adults in care home,unfortunately highly qualified individuals like this are a minority and so unsympathetic,ignorant so called carers are put in charge.Even more useless and as much use as chocolate teapots are the Care Commission,who only bothered abut this place because they were on media spotlight,up to then they just ignored the complaint.It makes us with a person to care for very angry that human rights for people with disabilites particularly with learning disabilites does not seem to be extended to such vunreable people.
|
|
|
|
Post by housesparrow on Jun 4, 2011 19:54:52 GMT
I'm just so thankful that my cousin fellon his feet in that respect. He had Downs syndrome and when his mother died, remained in his home with carers wh introduced him to a lot of things he had never experienced before -Youth Yostelling, discos, Thunderball (his sister was a bit iffy about the latter) - and day centres, which his mother sheltered him from.
He developed alheimers and ended up in a care hme newly established for people like him. There were only three residents to two members of staff, and they were very well cared for.
At least, I think so.....
|
|
