The government’s care watchdog the Care Quality Commission, published an interim report today into the treatment of people wiht learning disabilities and/or autism.
The report calls for a review of how adults, children and young people are locked up, segregated, restrained, far from home (that’s right – a report calling for another report..and today’s publication is just the interim report).
The health secretary’s response is that such cases will be reviewed – so, another report then.
Rather than write another report on this, here are a few headlines from recent pieces I’ve worked on with families and campaigners that tell you all you need to know:
Abuse of learning disabled people won’t stop until we all matter equally
You can’t rehabilitate someone into society when they’re locked away
[eight] years on from Winterbourne, why has nothing changed?
Why is it OK for politicians to ignore people with learning disabilities?
We must stop learning disabled people being dumped in waste bins of life
Why did Connor Sparrowhawk die in a specialist NHS unit?
And on that last question by the way, the campaign #JusticeforLB fought for the answer.
Tomorrow, the BBC will broadcast an expose by Panorama on abuse of people with learning disabilities and autism in secure hospitals.
There is now such a huge amount of evidence going back decades – from media to official goverment reports – about what’s wrong with how our health and social care services support learning disabled and autistic people. And a ton more on what needs to happen.
On Twitter today, #notcomplicated was a popular hashtag among campaigners, showing what’s possible in terms of supporting people well and upholding their human rights. So if I was about to get involved in the next report, review, investigation, guidance, consultation document, toolkit, standard, benchmark, framework or remit for a ‘working group’ (list goes on..) in this area, I’d start right there.
*This post is based on my short Twitter thread earlier today