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22.02.16

Learning disabilities commissioner needed to block ‘abusive treatment’

The government should appoint a commissioner to “promote and protect the rights” of people with learning disabilities, the author of the major Winterbourne View report has said in his latest review of the 2011 scandal, published today.

Sir Stephen Bubb, chief executive of the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations (ACEVO), made the recommendation as a final effort to overturn the “poor or abusive treatment” of people with learning disabilities in society.

“I am calling for an office of a learning disabilities commissioner to be established,” he said. “Just as a children’s commissioner was established following the Victoria Climbié Inquiry, there is a firm argument for establishing this post.

“It would have a statutory duty to promote and protect the rights of all people with learning disabilities and their families. I have spoken directly to people whose experience of these services goes back far beyond 2011 and Winterbourne View.

“I am still shocked by the way we as a society have condoned poor or abusive treatment of some of the most vulnerable people in our society.”

The Winterbourne View scandal in 2011 exposed a series of routine physical and psychological abuse suffered by people with learning disabilities at a hospital in South Gloucestershire.

As a result, the government pledged in 2012 to transform services by strengthening the accountability of director boards and moving potentially inappropriate hospital placements to community-based support by 2013.

But publishing the NHS England-commissioned Winterbourne View report in 2014, Sir Stephen claimed the government had failed to keep its promise. He then made a series of recommendations to the NHS, local government, regulators and Whitehall, including adopting a robust commissioning framework to support people with learning disabilities and autism move out of hospitals.

Five years on from the scandal, the ACEVO boss said the system is still failing. His latest report, ‘The Challenge Ahead’, claims an extra 10,000 staff, all trained to an established standard, are needed to support people in their own community.

With at least 1,300 people expected to move out of hospital care by 2019, he also said there is a need to develop housing for vulnerable people and exempt them from upcoming housing benefit caps.

“The dimensions of these challenges, and the failure to introduce a charter of rights in law, means that nothing less than a commissioner is required,” he said.

Today’s final report comes on the same day as fresh claims by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) that the learning disability nursing workforce in England has been slashed by one-third since 2010, as have student nurse training places.

The royal college’s chief executive and general secretary, Janet Davies, said: “Learning disability nurses are specialists in what they do, yet there has been a greater reduction in this branch of nursing than in any other area of the workforce and the consequences for the people they are meant to be supporting are all too plain to see.

“It’s absolutely essential that people with learning disabilities have access to the care and support that allows them to live safely within the community but this won’t be a reality until the ambition for community provision is matched with the right number of nurses to provide that vital support.

“This is not what was promised after Winterbourne View.”

But health minister Alistair Burt MP argued it was “only recently” that NHS England announced its major programme to move people with learning disabilities from hospitals to communities, “a move welcomed by Sir Stephen”.

“This, combined with the increase in specialist staff including nurses, will transform care,” he said. “We are not complacent and will work with the NHS, local government and others to make sure their plan is delivered.”

(Top image c. Tim Ireland, PA Wire)

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