When will politicians start listening to people with integrity and good maths and stop depriving people of their liberty in expensive unaccountable institutions? asks Jo Clare
The assessment and treatment system which spawned Winterbourne View creates optimum conditions for human rights abuses: it sends people far away from home, isolates them from those who know and love them, puts them ‘out of sight and out of mind’ of those who place and fund them.
This system has separated 13 year old Josh Wills from his family for two years and led to the preventable death of 18 year old Connor Sparrowhawk. Latterly, such was the disregard for natural justice for Connor, known as LB (Laughing Boy) that Southern Health were initially allowed to investigate a death for which they were ultimately found responsible. By the end of the #107 days Justice for LB campaign, no-one in charge at Southern Health had been held to account for Connor’s death.
Rotten unjust deal
To seal the rotten unjust deal, already toxic conditions are augmented by perverse incentives and conflicts of interest. Serially detaining people at very high prices is more lucrative than successfully assessing, treating and resettling people. In some cases, psychiatrists responsible for reviewing the appropriateness of detention or placement are in the pay of providers who benefit from serial and prolonged detention. As there is no transparency about conflict of interest, how can NHS England or Norman Lamb trust any of the thousands of decisions that a person is ‘appropriately placed’?
And then the whole poisonous system is protected by a widely accepted myth, that there are no alternatives, whereas there are alternatives. They exist everywhere, quietly keeping thousands of people out of the assessment and treatment system. What does not exist everywhere is the money to fund them, the local crisis and respite services to support them, and the will to commission them. A social care commissioner faced with huge budget cuts may choose not to fund a complex, risky, local community solution which costs £100,000 per annum, when there is an in-patient place paid for by the NHS going begging at £350,000.
So, with the opportunity for a fresh start and instant impact, the new NHS England CEO, Simon Stevens, responds to the Transforming Care debacle by haplessly appointing Sir Stephen Bubb, CEO of Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations, to lead an exclusive group of provider Chief Executives and advisors to produce a guide to reform the healthcare system for people with learning disabilities.
No conflict of interest there then. With no credible remit, the threat of a ten year plan, and hubris a-plenty, families and advocates of people subjected to this cruel system are furious with his appointment.
Powerful self-advocacy
In stark and welcome contrast, Day 99 of #107 days Justice for LB, the right people were around the table and the lights went on. In Leeds, CHANGE and Lumos combined to present a powerful self-advocacy event ‘Our Voices, Our Choices, Our Freedom’ and Norman Lamb‘s representative listened to experts by experience from all over the country (See Rosemary Trustam’s report of this event “It’s our freedom” on p.24). Oxfordshire Family Support Network also adopted the day and launched their articulate and illuminating report ‘A local experience of national concern’, dedicating it to the memory of LB.
We wait with bated breath until somebody in politics combines listening to the right people with integrity and good maths and works out that the overall economics, as well as the ethics, are on the side of liberty and human rights, not deprivation of liberty in expensive, unaccountable institutions. And if, armed with that, politicians do not have the power to end this system now, you might be forgiven for asking “What is the point of them”?
Jo Clare is CEO of Three Cs and a Community Living adviser.
Join the Campaign
Community Living magazine supports the Campaign for a Fair Society’s call to end, once and for all, the abusive system which spawned the Winterbourne View scandal.
Why not join the 3,000 lives campaign and write to your MP asking them to respond to the call for action?
