The latest report on inhumane care for people with learning disabilities in modern day Britain, this time from care inspectors, the Care Quality Commission, could not be more damning:
“we found that time and time again people were not getting the care they need, when they need it. We have attempted to reflect what we saw and the many examples we found of care that was undignified, inhumane and that potentially breached people’s basic human rights. We are grateful to those who have shared their experiences with us, and hope this will go some way to illustrate the trauma they have been through when they have sadly been failed by the system that was established to care and protect them (whether due to hospital admission from lack of crisis care, segregation or inappropriate use of restraint). Cumulatively, the evidence that we have gathered points to a system where people with complex needs fall through the gaps. We cannot be confident that their human rights are upheld, let alone be confident that they are supported to live fulfilling lives.”
They were not talking about exceptionally bad services: this is their verdict on what is considered normal for an entire group of people. Their recommendations are sensible. And they will make little impact. The report itself acknowledges the long line of similar reports going back decades, all with clear pictures of failings that are ‘shocking’, despite each having the same overall message. So the CQC’s entirely sensible recommendations about improving accountability, oversight, training, assessments and even their own inspections, will not prevent the next such report. This is a report about people with learning disabilities, not by them. It is about how to improve models of care which actively harm people, with ‘care’ that in many cases would be considered criminal if it was for any other group of people. This report should have one recommendation: close these institutional services and replace them with the models which CQC itself acknowledges can work. As the report itself says,
Another alternative is possible.
The question asked by the report’s title remains unanswered: Who cares enough to bring that alternative from the realm of the possible into reality?
In the meantime, the reports pile up, along with the wasted days spent out of sight, and out of mind.
Escaping the invisible asylum 