Failings in care of adults with learning difficulties

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) said nearly 50 per cent of the 145 hospitals and care homes it inspected did not meet required standards in terms of care, welfare and whether people were safe from abuse.

Privately-run services were twice as likely to fail snap inspections as those run by the NHS.

The unannounced spot checks were carried out in the wake of abuse uncovered by the BBC’s Panorama programme at Winterbourne View hospital near Bristol.

The undercover footage showed staff at the hospital appearing to taunt and abuse the vulnerable adults in their care.

However, there was no evidence that pointed to abuse on the scale uncovered at Winterbourne View hospital, CQC chairman Dame Jo Williams said.

There were “lessons to be learned” by care providers about the use of restraint and an “urgent need” to reduce the use of restraint.

Staff should be trained to use more appropriate ways of restraining patients, the report said.

The inspections focused on examining the general care and welfare of people who used the services as well as whether people were safe from abuse.

It found only a third of privately-run services met standards compared to two thirds of NHS providers.

The CQC also found that some assessment and treatment services admit patients to care for disproportionately long periods of time and discharge arrangements take too long to arrange.

Dame Jo said: “People who use these services need care and support and they and their families need to be treated with care and respect.

“While our inspections found examples of good care, too often they found that services were not meeting the individual needs of people.

“Although many of the services we inspected were intended to be hospitals or places where people’s needs were assessed, we found that some people were in these services for too long, with not enough being done to help them move on to appropriate community-based care.

“All too often, inspection teams found that people using services were at risk of being restrained inappropriately because staff often did not understand what actions count as restraint, and when restraint happened there was inadequate review of these putting people at risk of harm or abuse.

“There is no evidence that points to abuse on the scale which was uncovered at Winterbourne View Hospital.

“However, every single case of poor care that we have found tells a human story and there is plenty of room for improvement to help a group of people whose circumstances make them particularly vulnerable.”

Former learning disability services patient Laura Broughton, who was part of the inspection teams, described seeing distressed patients who were not treated as individuals.

She said: “Some of the people I met could have more help in getting a better life. They were often bored and distressed and staff talked to them not as adults but as though they were children.

“I felt that some people didn’t get the opportunities they could have because they couldn’t speak or because others thought their behaviour was challenging.”

Care Services Minister Paul Burstow insisted problems in the sector were not caused by the removal of ring-fenced funding.

He said: “This is a problem that has been festering in our system for years, even when there was plenty of money.

“It’s not about money in this case, it’s about commissioners commissioning the right sort of services in the first place.”