Whorlton Hall abuse scandal

In May 2019, a BBC Panorama broadcast showed evidence of abusive treatment of people with learning disabilities and autism at Whorlton Hall, a specialist hospital in County Durham. The hospital was run by private health care provider Cygnet and was NHS funded. Filming by an undercover reporter showed care workers verbally abusing and restraining patients, and discussing physically abusing patients. Following the Panorama report, Cygnet closed Whorlton Hall and transferred patients to other services, and the police started a criminal investigation into the allegations.

Whorlton Hall was an ‘assessment and treatment’ unit (ATU), a type of specialist unit designed for short-term inpatient care of people with learning disabilities. There had been longstanding concerns about ATUs, including another high-profile Panorama report into abuse of people with learning disabilities at Winterbourne View Hospital in 2011. Since the Winterbourne View scandal, government had missed several targets to reduce placements in ATUs for people with learning disabilities.

In the same week as the report on Whorlton Hall, three other reports highlighted failures of care for people with learning disabilities, autism and mental health problems:

• The English learning disabilities mortality review (LeDeR) annual report found evidence of poor-quality health and social care services contributing to the causes of death of adults with learning disabilities.
• The interim report from the health and care regulator, the Care Quality Commission (CQC), on its review of restraint, prolonged seclusion and segregation, concluded that the current system of care for people with a mental health problem, a learning disability or autism was ‘not fit for purpose’.
• The Children’s Commissioner’s report on children with learning disabilities or autism living in mental health hospitals described the quality of care in hospital as ‘highly variable, and in some cases very concerning’, with cases of staff abusing and neglecting children.

CQC review

In January 2020, the CQC published an independent review into how it dealt with concerns from one of its employees about the regulation of Whorlton Hall. The report found that the CQC had been ‘wrong’ not to publish a report from a 2015 inspection that raised concerns about the quality of care and classified the hospital as ‘requiring improvement’, which would have led to closer scrutiny.

In March and December 2020, the CQC published two reports outlining the findings of an independent review of the regulation of Whorlton Hall between 2015 and 2019. The investigation found that while procedures were followed, the inspection process did not identify patient abuse. The review made recommendations to improve the regulation of mental health institutions and the identification of patient abuse.