{"id":1212,"date":"2019-05-24T15:16:27","date_gmt":"2019-05-24T15:16:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/entertainment\/?p=1212"},"modified":"2019-05-24T15:43:05","modified_gmt":"2019-05-24T15:43:05","slug":"bbc-panorama-programme-whorlton-hall-abuse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/entertainment\/bbc-panorama-programme-whorlton-hall-abuse\/tv-and-films\/","title":{"rendered":"BBC Panorama programme: Whorlton Hall abuse"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The BBC&#8217;s panorama programme has uncovered video evidence of patients who have autism and learning difficulties are being mocked, taunted and intimidated by abusive staff. Undercover BBC filming showed the staff mistreating the patients at Whorlton Hall, County Durham.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/av\/embed\/p07b1rx1\/48381270\" width=\"800\" height=\"500\" frameborder=\"0\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">BBC have released this documentary eight years after the programme exposed the scandal of abuse at Winterbourne View, another specialist hospital.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Two male staff members singled out a women patient for particular abuse, this woman was scared of men and the staff would tell her they will bring men in the room in an effort to keep her quiet.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Whorlton Hall has 17 beds and cares for many who are sectioned under the Mental Health Act. The site had at least 100 visits by official agencies in the year before the undercover filming took place.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">All patients have now been transferred to other services and the hospital is closed down.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">BBC was at Whorlton Hall undercover for two months and aired the shocking footage on Wednesday showing the abuse and neglect by staff towards patients.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Whorlton Hall is currently run by Cygnet Health Care. Cygnet have suspended 16 staff members.\u00a0It has said it is &#8220;shocked and deeply saddened&#8221; by the allegations.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>A spokesman for the firm said:<\/strong> \u201c We are shocked and deeply saddened by the allegations made against members of staff at Whorlton Hall, part of the Danshell Group, which Cygnet recently acquired. We take these allegations extremely seriously.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">&#8220;We have suspended all the members of staff involved, simultaneously informed all relevant authorities, including the police, who have now instigated an inquiry and we are cooperating fully with their investigation.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>A spokesman for Durham Constabulary said:<\/strong> \u201cAs this is an ongoing inquiry, we are unable to comment further at this time, other than to repeat that our immediate priority has been to work with other agencies to safeguard the victims at the centre of the allegations and their families.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u201cThe investigation is at an early stage and is expected to take some time to complete\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1214\" style=\"width: 810px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a style=\"color: #000000;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/health-48367071\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1214\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1214\" src=\"http:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/entertainment\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/05\/107062961_p_staff1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/entertainment\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/05\/107062961_p_staff1.jpg 800w, https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/entertainment\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/05\/107062961_p_staff1-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/entertainment\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/05\/107062961_p_staff1-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/entertainment\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/05\/107062961_p_staff1-750x422.jpg 750w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1214\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">BBC<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>Care minister Caroline Dinenage told the House of Commons she was<\/strong> &#8220;deeply sorry that this has happened&#8221;.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The Care Quality Commision which inspected the hospital in 2017 and gave it a &#8216;good&#8217; rating, apologised last night for not picking up on the abuse. The footage showed a staff member referring to Whorlton Hall as a &#8220;house of mongs&#8221;. A colleague calls a patient a \u201cfat c**t\u201d, while another patient was told her family are \u201cf***king poison\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong><span class=\"m_first-letter m_first-letter--flagged\">M<\/span>ark Rowland, Chief Executive of the Mental Health Foundation, said:<\/strong> \u201cEight years after Panorama uncovered systemic abuse of people with learning disabilities at Winterbourne View, it defies belief that this is still happening.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u201cAfter Winterbourne View, the government promised to reduce the number of people with learning disabilities who are kept in institutions for long periods.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">&#8220;Yet more than 2,000 people are still in this hellish situation \u2013 more than half of whom have spent more than two years as inpatients.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong><span class=\"m_first-letter\">T<\/span>he Department for Health and Social Care said:<\/strong> \u201cWe are working to ensure more people return home from hospital as soon as their treatment has finished and significant investment in community support has already led to a 22 per cent\u00a0reduction in these mental health inpatient numbers since 2015.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The BBC&#8217;s panorama programme has uncovered video evidence of patients who have autism and learning difficulties are being mocked, taunted and intimidated by abusive staff. Undercover BBC filming showed the staff mistreating the patients at Whorlton Hall, County Durham. \ufeff BBC have released this documentary eight years after the programme exposed the scandal of abuse&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":1216,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[169,536,538,537],"class_list":["post-1212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tv-and-films","tag-bbc","tag-bbc-panorama-programme-hospital-abused-vulnerable-adults","tag-whorlton-hall","tag-whorlton-hall-abuse"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/entertainment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/entertainment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/entertainment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/entertainment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/entertainment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1212"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/entertainment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1212\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1223,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/entertainment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1212\/revisions\/1223"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/entertainment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/entertainment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/entertainment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/entertainment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}