This is a photo of LB taken 2 days into the last year of his life. His school prom. July 6th 2012. Owen went with him that year. When I found this photo earlier, Tom was delighted. We should get it printed and framed, he enthused. Such a brilliant photo. It is (though this is a screen grab, I can’t find the original right now because of some horrible hiccup with my groaning Mac.) As Tom said, he looks like the guy who the party is organised around. Too blinking cool for school (my cheesy words, not Tom’s). The world at his feet…

That wasn’t a celebratory school prom because LB’s school mate was an inpatient in a children’s unit in Norwich at the time. He’d been there for a few months, had been drugged to the eyeballs and (subsequently) subject to abuse/restraint. He came to the prom with his sister and his mum on a weekend visit home.  We (#ragingmothers) kept our heads down in a side room, trying not to visibly cry when we saw how he’d been affected by his experience/medication.

At the time, LB was, as he looks here, a young dude at the start of his adult life. He occupied a loved and adored place in his extended family, rocked school (and the prom) and was (recognising the constraints around not being able to leave home on his own, cross the road, count to 10 or understand the implications of certain actions) a chilled dude.

Less than a year later he was dead. Shockingly. Preventably. And so far without anyone held accountable. (Or any real change).

LB’s mate is currently experiencing some difficulties having had a good year or so at home with good support. There’s now no in-county provision now STATT has shut. A horrible, sad and howling circularity to LB and his mate’s actual experiences and the government policies including Norman Lamb’s handwringing about abject failure and lack of change, Winterbourne View concordat tentacles and what any of this means to the providers in real terms.

There are some serious questions to be asked about the current closure of STATT and the obligations of the commissioners and local authority to provide effective and good services for people within the county. Basically, if they were able to provide shite provision at extortionate cost in county for however many years, why can’t they provide something good now they know the problems that exist? It really ain’t rocket science.

Or it shouldn’t be dressed up to be.

I received a big package yesterday from the Sloves. The spoils of my Access to Records request. Blimey, I thought. This will take a bit of a read through. As it turned out, it took all of five minutes. The bulk was a copy of the Verita report and one set of board papers (stretching to the typical 200 page length). That left very little.

Now I requested copies of all documentation (reports, letters, emails, etc) in which I was mentioned dating back to when LB went into the unit, including exchanges with other organisations like NHS England, the CQC, Monitor and so on. And following the new NHS emphasis on candour (that is, open, honest and frank engagement), I’d expect a thorough set of documentation.  I’ve had several Sloven emails mentioning me that have been forwarded to me over the past ten months.

Two emails were included. Two.  One the Sloves sent to two people separately, and a response to that email from NHS England.

So more billy bullshite from the now legendary slovenly Trust. Notwithstanding the emails I’d already been forwarded (not included in the Sloven Two), an organisation that’s actively seeking professional advice from different areas (including social media) to manage the trickiness surrounding what’s happened (an ‘unprecedented set of circumstances for the Trust’ according to the Chairman), would clearly have more than two emails mentioning me.

One of the other bits included in the package was the Briefing Note to Monitor. This 3.5 side document includes four separate mentions about wanting to meet with me.

• To date Ms Ryan has declined all invitations to meet with the Trust Chief Executive
• It has been suggested that the Trust is somehow “hiding” from the media on this matter. The truth is very different. The Trust has responded positively to media requests and more importantly it remains keen to engage properly with Connor’s mother, Sara Ryan, but to date she has declined to meet with the Trust.
• For these reasons we should not respond through social media channels but we should continue to seek to engage with Sara Ryan in other ways. We owe it to her to understand that she is currently going through a grieving process and while she may not wish to meet with the Trust now, we still have a duty to engage with her in the future.
• We are pleased that Ms Ryan is meeting with David Nicholson and Jane Cummings – and subject to their agreement – we would invite NHS England to use its best endeavours to persuade Sara Ryan to meet with the Trust.”

This is another example of the completely misplaced focus of Sloven actions, a misplaced focus that filtered down and ultimately led to LB’s death. Instead of concentrating on the care provided and the ship they are running, they seem determined to hound me (and encourage others to hound me) into meeting with them. Why?

And if you’re reading this, KP and team, can you bung the missing documentation my way? Or have I got to make a second ‘official’ request?