Hugo de Savary's – living with learning disabilities.

Joe Casey the Panorama journalist has to be commended for putting himself through the ordeal of witnessing these dreadful actions and for keeping his cool to record the damning evidence to charge these monsters.

I felt absolutely sick watching this footage and was left having nightmares remembering what happened to my sister before she came to HFHC at her previous placement, when she was dragged by a support worker down the corridor by her hair. What was shown last night was care from a bygone age where, despite plenty of money available (over £3500 a week/placement) and modern premises, systematic failure still occurred. This illustrates that you certainly can’t judge a leopard by its spots.

Structured home activities seemed to be in-existent, boredom rife, abuse and torture plentiful, and management controls lacking robustness and solely in place to pay lip service.  This raises wider questions about the company’s recruitment, training and quality assurance procedures. These staff should not have slipped through the recruitment process, and if they had, then they certainly should have been picked out during their training if they weren’t displaying the right values and ethos. Failing these milestones at the very least, the quality assurance aspect of the organisation should have been on top of this, especially in light of the conviction of a support worker for violent conduct towards a service user from the same home a couple months prior to the Panorama investigation. What was demonstrated was a culture certainly not fit for purpose.

All the stakeholders involved at Winterbourne View from the owners, senior managers and the regulatory bodies should be ashamed of what has happened and should take a very close look at whether they should be working in this sector. This is a sector that requires of its individuals the utmost integrity, due to the trust placed upon them by families and the wider society. Unfortunately, in this case, it appears that these stakeholders failed to meet the most fundamental needs of these vulnerable adults, notably to feel safe and secure.

For those who missed this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b011pwt6#synopsis

2 Responses to “Panorama Undercover care: The Abuse Exposed”