When LB was in the unit there was a patient (one of five) who didn’t look brilliant. I only saw him/her dressed once. Most of the time we visited s/he was in a dressing gown and didn’t seem to go out much. S/he had a bit of a wry sense of humour and chatted away, like really chatted away. A bit like LB really.
I read months later that a patient died of cancer days after LB died. Eh? What? How could someone so close to the end of their life through terminal illness be in a secure unit days before their death [howl]. And why was this discussed in a document reflecting on the additional distress her/his death caused staff. No apparent consideration for other patients. Again.
In the 107 days LB was in the unit, we saw how the inmates (let’s not dress it up) connected with each other and had a sometimes uneasy, occasionally hilarious but a recognisably collective sense of being there. How the three living (remaining?) patients have dealt with the trauma they experienced during that hot, hot July, without specialist support (no post-Winterbourne View/JIP related, apparently gold plated, support here) is unimaginable. Were they able to attend this second funeral if nothing else?
I heard this week, through another dicky bird (the scourge of the candour duty obliterators) that some staff had been concerned about the wellbeing of this patient over some time. [Good]. These concerns were not really listened to. Allegedly, through the whistle blowing process, Sloven have only recently started an internal (that is, chocolate teapot jobby like) investigation into this person’s death. Over a year and a half later.
Wow. If nothing else, the shite that continues to become visible is, er, consistently, shite.
One of our campaign aims was a review into the deaths of all patients in Sloven learning disability and mental health provision since 2011. This was commissioned by David Nicholson last spring.The Death Review got off to a shaky start given nonsense about having Sloven and local CCGs on the expert advisory panel. It looks like this has been resolved but here’s hoping the review gets to the heart of the rotten core. It isn’t about number of deaths but about the response to these deaths. Not only are people denied humanity in life but also in death.
Chilling and unforgivable.
mydaftlife 
They don’t care about these people, they are just cash cows, making 4.500 per body, an accounting exercise, to make as much profit as possible from, this is the obscenity.
And they will just be removed to another death camp, like independent living units, to make a similar amount per week for life, with less protection, and no chance of release.
Like poor Tom Rawnsley in Sheffield 3 days ago another cash cow killed by the system.
As if being assaulted by your ,carer, was not bad enough, when he then became distrustful of his carers, and difficult to handle, he was transferred to a unit, and force fed risperidone, until he died of a heart attack with also unexplained injuries.
All at the hands of enforced profit making drugs regime, drug trials and itinerant, prescribed, bullied, desperate, all powerful’ carers’.
Family cut out, if they get on the wrong side of any staff, all for huge profit.
That why these deaths are never featured in the News. Just the torture of Islamic State.
This fate may soon await my daughter,
And the thought is difficult to function with, at a time when I have to look after a very, due to state, traumatised autistic girl, and fight an impossible fight, doing all my own legal representation.
Any many many more parents. How do I and their parents fight the SS, OFFICAL SOL and rubber stamping courts, and the profit made by these multimillion pound death camps.
Read THE RESIRIDOL SCANDAL post by googling finolamoss
I come from a family of seven siblings. I was number 6 to be born, number 5 is just over a year older and number 7 2 years younger. Number 5 had a convulsion at the age of 3, retarding his mental growth. Number 7 was always in and out of hospital with extreme asthma attacks and due to a lack of education, compounded by a mothers worry, succumbed to mental illness. I was their go to guy when other kids (being kids of the sixties) took the mickey out of them. I did not mind as i was blessed with quick fists and anger to match also my best friend and his family across the road understood and were a great support. The thing is that our father was a drunken sop and nasty with it. Many were the evenings when we had gone to bed (we slept in the same bed) he would come home and apart from ranting on about how he won world war 2, he would also rant on about his disappointment in them. How he could rant. The kids were easy to sort out and did not have much imagination when it came to name calling but him. he had lots to say about their mental short comings. As we lay in bed his voice was very clear and the tears I saw in their eyes were only matched by my own. This is not about injustice, I would like to think that it isn’t about my past. I write this because although people with mental disabilities may seem adrift from reality, It does not stop them feeling, but also they can eventually mask their feelings due in some part for a need to hid the pain
If a person with a learning disability gets upset about the awful care being given to him/her they get labeled over sensitive. If any other citizen airs their grievances about anything they do not like they are claiming their right to free speech.
Sadly only one word keeps coming into my head time after time…….negligence, and that is a pretty word for abuse.
being denied humanity in death is the second tire care delivered to a disabled person.Energetic efforts to treat pain for the best possible outcome is good practice. The reality is ‘ reasonably successful response ‘ and the patient left breathless, distressed and in pain. Holistic end of life assessments conducted in a few minutes bedside with responses limited to thumb up/down. No assessment of non verbal signs of pain and distress by any attendant nurse.Totally unacceptable.
I think you will find that she spent her last few weeks at Sobel House and it was her choice NOTE THE WORD CHOICE to stay at STATT as she classed it as her home and felt safe.
I am relieved to hear that this person spent her last few weeks at Sobel House. It is somewhat comforting to know that she felt that STATT was viewed as “home,” and maybe that suited her needs in that distressing time towards the end of her illness. But you cannot deny that the STATT in question was a NOT safe environment for everyone.
Good about Sobell House though not sure how anyone could consider STATT (Short Term Assessment and Treatment unit) their home? And why investigate her death 18 months later? Too many questions and too much shite. As always.