Winterbourne View - a personal view
Friday, June 3, 2011 at 10:22AM Unsurprisingly, the words “appalling” and “shocking” have been widely and rightly used to describe the abuse of people with learning disabilities at Winterbourne View in Bristol, uncovered by this week’s BBC Panorama programme. But what is, perhaps, more appalling and shocking is how unsurprising it is that such systematic abuse is uncovered.
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has apologised for its “failure to act more swiftly”. Regulation is not, nor can it be, perfect. But, seemingly, the CQC graces itself with little favour. First, its “light touch” inspection regime means that places such as Winterbourne View where very little has caused the CQC concern in the past (perhaps a worry in itself) would not even be inspected once a year.
Second (and I will expand on this point on a later post), the very quality of the light-touch inspection process appears weak. Read the previous three inspection reports and you only get a sense that all the inspectors are interested in is records, policies and procedures. People don’t seem to be part of it (unless it’s the manager or senior being available to dig the relevant leaflet or policy). The inspection reports are thoughtlessly designed, bureaucratic, poorly written and jargon-filled. I can imagine relatives and staff struggling with phrases such as “the occlusion of windows” let alone the people who matter most: those who actually live there.
We get no sense of the quality of life being experienced, the quality of relationships between all those who live, work or visit the place. Maybe if the inspectors had concentrated more on speaking to the service users (or so-called patients as this is a hospital setting) then they might have picked up on the appalling and shocking abuse that has clearly been taking place over some time and has developed into fairly standard practice. CQC set itself up in a blaze of “putting the service user at the heart of inspection”. If these reports are typical then that heart has been ripped out in favour of inspection findings that centre on “no warning notices in place to show where oxygen cylinders are stored within the establishment”.
I’m sure warning notices are important. But what about warnings about the care? What about the relationships? What is a day in the life of someone living there like? For inspectors not to find out this basic care stuff is also, I suggest, appalling and shocking.
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