Beyond Winterbourne View

Colin ElliottAssistant Director, Adults, Health

and WellbeingManchester City Council

Winterbourne View: Key Findings

• People should have access to the support and services they need in the community, near to family and friends. Closed institutions, with people far from home and family, deny people the right care and present the risk of poor care and abuse.

• Many people are in hospital who don’t need to be there, and many stay there for far too long – sometimes for years.

• Winterbourne View was an extreme example of abuse, but the investigation found evidence of poor quality of care, poor care planning, lack of meaningful activities to do in the day and too much reliance on restraining people.

• All parts of the system have a duty to drive up standards and abuse cannot be tolerated.

Winterbourne View Report‘I want staff to feel able to speak out when they see poor care taking place as well as getting the training and support they need to deal with the complex and challenging dilemmas they often face.

For me, this is the bigger leadership and cultural challenge that this scandal has exposed – and answering it will mean listening and involving people with learning disabilities and their families more than ever before.’

Norman Lamb,Minister of State for Care and SupportTransforming Care, A National Response to Winterbourne View HospitalDepartment of Health Review: Final Report (2012)

Agencies’ Responsibilities

• providers have a duty of care to each individual they are responsible for, ensuring that services meet their individual needs and putting systems and processes in place to provide effective, efficient and high quality care

• commissioners (NHS and local authorities) are responsible for planning for local needs, purchasing care that meets people’s needs and building into contracts clear requirements about the quality and effectiveness of that care;

• workforce, including health and care professional and staff who have a duty of care to each individual they are responsible for; and

• system and professional regulators who are responsible for assuring the quality of care through the discharge of their duties and functions.

Programme of action to transform services

• People no longer live inappropriately in hospitals

• People are cared for in line with best practice, based on their individual needs

• Their wishes and those of their families are listened to and are at the heart of planning and delivering their care.

Change will require action by many different

organisations

•Health and care commissioners will review all current hospital placements and support everyone inappropriately placed in hospital to move to community-based support as quickly as possible and no later than 1 June 2014

•Every area will put in place a locally agreed joint plan for high quality care and support services for people of all ages with challenging behaviour, that accords with the model of good care

Change will require action by many different

organisations

• There will be national leadership and support for local change

• Regulation and inspection of providers will be tightened

• Planning will start from childhood

Change will require action by many different

organisations• Improving the quality and safety of care

• Accountability and corporate responsibility for the quality of care will be strengthened

• Progress in transforming care and redesigning services will be monitored and reported

Challenges

• Leadership

• Partnership

• Responsibility

• Accountability

• Improving delivery across whole systems and at different levels (national/regional/local)