It has been 10 years since the Winterbourne View scandal that was revealed by BBC Panorama. Despite what was learnt from this, abuse has continued and people with learning disabilities are still living in hospitals.
The University of Hertfordshire have been doing research with people with learning disabilities to understand their experiences of moving. It is hoped this research will help to support people to move out of hospital and live successfully in the community. Ultimately, putting a stop to abuse.
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May 2021 will mark ten years since the BBC Panorama documentary unveiled the abuse of vulnerable adults with learning disabilities in Winterbourne View, a specialist hospital set up for the assessment and treatment of people with complex needs. The scandal marked the beginning of the Transforming Care agenda, which aimed to move people out of inappropriate hospital placements, into the community. Unfortunately, ten years on, progress has been slow and over 2000 people still are living in hospital, sometimes for years, waiting to be discharged into the community. Further abuse has since been discovered at similar hospitals, such as at Whorlton Hall and Yew Trees. Some of the families whose relatives were at Winterbourne View Hospital have written a report to be published in May 2021, highlighting the lack of progress, and the ongoing impact on their relatives. It sets out the action they want to see to ensure that the promised transformation becomes a reality.
Alongside the NHS England plan to reduce admissions and number of beds, the Building the Right Support guidance aimed to improve community services, particularly for people who have complex mental health needs, and / or use behaviours which challenge. After all, if there is not the right support in the community for people to prevent inappropriate admission in the first place, as well as for people to move back into, it seems inevitable that there will continue to be an over-reliance on hospitals for this provision.
Our NIHR-funded research project aims to identify the key factors that make living in the community a success after moving out of Assessment and Treatment Units (ATUs), mental health hospitals and forensic units, as part of the Transforming Care agenda. Crucially, and uniquely in the current evidence-base in this field, we are asking people with learning disabilities themselves to tell us what has helped and not helped them in their placements. The voices and experiences of people with learning disabilities are so often overlooked, and along with it, the chance to learn from the very people most affected.
Based at the University of Hertfordshire, our research team are interviewing people with learning disabilities who have moved out of hospitals, forensic units, or ATUs, into homes in the community. We are finding out what has helped enable people to stay in the community both in the short and long term. We are interviewing people at two time points to be able to follow this up over time. Crucially, some people who we interview may end up being readmitted, and this may give us further insight into what factors affect when things have not worked out as well.
Recruiting from a number of sites across England, we are interviewing people with a wide range of needs, who are different ages, gender, ethnicity, and have spent different amounts of time in hospital and in the community since moving. Some people may have more limited abilities and need high levels of support once they move, whereas others are more independent. This breadth in experiences will help us to generate evidence which fits a wide range of circumstances This research is a unique opportunity to gain evidence about what works on the ground for people who have left hospitals like Winterbourne View. This can be used to inform policy and practice around supporting such moves in the future. The research will demonstrate the ways to successfully support people in the community, making an immeasurable difference to peoples’ lives, and thus resulting in fewer inappropriate admissions – which hopefully will mean abusive experiences in hospitals can finally become a thing of the past.
If you would like to discuss this research further or have any comments then please contact us through our email: hello@makingpositivemoves.org or find us on social media:
