On 13th December, the Department of Health published its review of progress in improving the quality of care for vulnerable people, following abuse of residents at Winterbourne View hospital. The report is entitled Winterbourne View: transforming care one year on and is available for reading/download from the DoH website.
Reaction has been less than enthusiastic. In his blog on the Community Care website, Mithran Samuel offers his own critique, and summarises the less than enthusuiatic responses from those involved in the care sector (e.g. “If the government and local areas don’t stop dithering, we will miss this unique opportunity. In so doing, they continue to fail not only people with a learning disability, but everyone who saw or heard about what happened at Winterbourne View and demanded change.” Vivien Cooper and Jan Tregelles, chief executives of The Challenging Behaviour Foundation and Mencap)
The Independent’s analysis of the DoH report ran under the headlines ‘Thousands of patients still live in hospitals, a year on from Government promises to transform adult social care’ and ‘One in five patients with learning disabilities live in hospitals 100km or more from their families’. As the Independent reported, a deadline of June 2014 was set for local authorities and Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) to transfer people currently in Winterbourne-style hospital units into community care settings much closer to their homes. However, a status report published in September revealed that nearly half of local areas were not confident they could meet the deadline.
Care and Support Minister Norman Lamb said he was “deeply frustrated” that it was taking so long to move patients out of hospital and said local health commissioners had to “get a grip”. Expect more on this issue soon…