Nigel, Oily Rags and Engineers.

Tags

(un)accountability, institutions, SEND Transport, Special Needs Education

I spent part of my paid working life in the Chief Executive’s department of a Local Authority and one of my duties was to arrange Council Committee meetings and organise agendas and reports for circulation to statutory deadlines. Official papers had to be circulated at a prescribed minimum interval in advance of the meeting, or it could not lawfully take place. Copies of the agenda and non-confidential reports had to be made available to the public, although for most meetings, the only person who wanted to see them was Nigel, the twenty-something junior reporter from the local paper who was tasked with reporting on Council matters.

I spent many an hour sitting in the same Council chamber as Nigel, he in the public seats, me in my Committee-clerk’s place next to the chairperson, listening to debates of varying coherence, but sometimes Nigel didn’t turn up. If he couldn’t make it on the day, he would phone me the following morning to ask if any of the resolutions had varied from the officers’ recommendations. Usually they had not, which meant he could file his report, written in advance of the meeting on the basis of the agenda papers. Any variations meant he just had to do a little tweaking and could still make his copy deadline.

The Members were always a bit miffed when Nigel failed to show up. They seemed to think it was cheating to report on a meeting he hadn’t attended. I, on the other hand, had a sneaking sympathy for him: why should he spend two or three hours of his life listening to people laboriously make the decisions that someone else had already written out for them? I did not mention to Members that I found using the Nigel method of writing – in my case draft minutes – in advance of the meeting, was an excellent way to earn a reputation for diligence and efficiency.

Then the Council found itself in a legal pickle and various senior officers and leading Members were required to attend the High Court for several days. The Members were very miffed to discover that Nigel had gone to the trouble of catching the same early train as themselves, in order to report live, as it were, from the proceedings.

My sympathy for Nigel blossomed into frank admiration. He seemed to me to be doing things just right, journalistically speaking: he knew his stuff; he did his research and double-checked it; he made no bones about doing anything and everything he had a right to do; and he had the savvy to realise that if you stand by your rights and ignore the ‘unwritten rules’, they will just have to be rewritten not to include you.

After Annual Council one year, I managed to corner Nigel over a pint and got him to expand on his journalistic principles.

“This stuff matters. It may be ‘only local news’, but there’s tens of thousands of people with a vital interest in it. Do your leg-work. Ask some questions to which you already know the answers so you can check for truthfulness. Always look as if you know what you are doing. Never ask permission – know what you can do and just go ahead. Cultivate your contacts at all levels, but don’t let yourself be fobbed off with oily rags (here he looked rather apologetic) if you need to speak to the engineer. You can’t refuse to dig over dirt, the gold is often buried. And if you think a piece might need to be shown to legal, then it definitely needs to be shown to legal.”

With all that in mind, and with a nod to Nigel, here is a letter to a local Authority that I was annoyed into writing last week on behalf of a distraught fellow-parent. The specific Council shall remain nameless; it could be anywhere in England.

To: Chief Legal Officer
NE Whare Authority
Council Chambers
Whareabouts.

Copy to: Manager, SEN Transport
Copy to: Lead Member, education & children’s services

Re: SEND Transport Services to <schoolname>
<Child’s name> <Child’s date of birth>

Dear <CLO’s name>

I have recently been having somewhat fruitless discussions with your colleague <SEN transport manager’s name> and I wonder if you may be more successful than I in explaining to him that the course of action he proposes to take is not within his legal powers as an officer of the Authority? I feel he and his department have failed to grasp the undesirable consequences for N. E. Whare of persisting in their current practice.

He contends that if my child is in receipt of mobility allowance or has a Motability car, I am expected to provide his/her transport to and from school. Apparently this is in pursuit of something called ‘least restrictive transport options’. I cannot find any reference to this entity in the relevant legislation, namely Section 508B of the Education Act 1996. As you will know even better than I, any guidance, statutory or otherwise, and any Authority policy, MUST be held subsidiary to and operated in accordance with the provisions of primary legislation.

The obligation under S.508B EA 1996 is that eligible children – of whom my child is one, by reason of disability – must be provided with free transport to school arranged by the Local Authority. Subsection 4 states that certain other arrangements may be made with parental consent. I refuse consent to any such arrangements and I require the Authority to fulfil its statutory duties forthwith.

While I am sure that <local Nigel’s name> would welcome a change of scene from the Council chamber to the High Court for a day, I’d be surprised if NE Whare Authority will relish being reported as one that has obliged the family of a disabled child to go through the trouble, stress and expense of bringing judicial review proceedings, in order to force the Authority to fulfil its statutory duty by providing transport in accordance with legal requirements, as it should have done in the first place.

I trust therefore that from now on, neither I nor any other parent in NE Whare’s area will find the Authority trying to land us with obligations whose imposition is ultra vires.

I look forward to receiving transport proposals for my child that are consonant with the relevant legislation.

Yours sincerely

<Parent’s name>

Alarming.

Tags

(un)accountability, autism, care in the community, charities, coroner, court proceedings, independent living, inquest, institutions, learning disability, true stories, voluntary organisations

Another week, another inquest. Actually, this week, two of the ghastly things: Oliver McGowan‘s in Bristol and Danny Tozer‘s in York.  The Bristol Post is doing a sterling job of summary reporting of what was done to Oliver and how it is being presented in court (big shout-out to the Post’s education reporter, Michael Yong, whose coverage of this epitomises local journalism at its finest).

Meanwhile, George Julian is live-tweeting Danny’s inquest.  There are grim similarities between the treatment of both these young men, and also with what was done to Connor Sparrowhawk.  All three had epilepsy, autism and varying forms of learning disability.  All three had their epilepsy discounted, being treated as though its symptoms were behavioural or mental-health problems, rather than signs of a physical brain malfunction.

Danny’s epilepsy manifested itself as tonic-clonic seizures, the sort that used to be called ‘grand mal’.  It was known that if one of Danny’s seizures lasted more than five minutes, he needed medical attention, and it was also known that he was susceptible to seizures at any time.  The logical inference to be drawn from this was that Danny shouldn’t be unobserved or unmonitored for more than five minutes at a time, but the implication seems to have eluded the people supposed to be looking after him.  He was routinely left for ‘fifteen to twenty minutes’ in the morning for ‘private time’ (masturbation).  Danny’s Mencap ‘independent living placement’ (rebadged residential home) had installed a seizure monitor in the form of a movement-detector placed under his mattress, linked to a remote audible alarm.  But when it went off during Danny’s ‘private times’, this appears to have been assumed to be due to his movements while masturbating, rather than to any resulting seizure activity.  It also ‘was going off frequently throughout the night’, according to John Andrews, the waking night worker who gave evidence yesterday.  He reported the fact to his managers.

The alarm, appropriately for an emergency warning, was loud: “Like a fire alarm,” according to Angela Stone, one of the day workers.  Inconveniently loud.  “It was going off disturbing everyone.” said Ms. Stone.
So the engineers were called to ‘tweak’ the monitor.
“It was a case of getting the settings right,” explained Ms Stone, adding, “I don’t know where I’ve got the word settings from.”
That suggested that some, at least, of the people working with Danny misunderstood the gravity of his condition.
Ms Stone was categorical: “I felt <bed> was a safe place for Danny, we had the mat, we knew that worked, he wasn’t seriously epileptic.”
Myself, I can’t imagine in what universe repeated tonic-clonic seizures are considered ‘casual’ epilepsy.

There was no mention, yesterday, of what clinical advice, if any, was provided to the engineers to ensure the revised settings were still suitable to keep Danny safe, nor any mention of a medical opinion being sought about the ‘frequent’ alarms.  Tellingly, when Danny was found in bed, grey and not breathing, on the morning of his death, the forceful, rhythmic activity of cardio-pulmonary resuscitation did not trigger the system.
“It suddenly struck me after everything was over,” said Ms. Stone, “We’d not heard the alarm go off. I couldn’t get my head around why we hadn’t heard the alarm go off.”
In a gruesomely farcical passage, she described herself and her manager checking the alarm:
“So Rachel, the manager, and I went to Danny’s room to look at the mat, that was the first thing that occurred to us, something had happened, something was wrong. The mat was on, the light was green.  Rachel showed me how you had to move around in a certain way to set the alarm off, and the alarm went.”
“Who got on the bed?” asked the coroner.
“Rachel,” said Ms Stone.  “I didn’t have a clue how to do it.”
Nope. No clue.
Is it possible that the sensitivity of the mat’s ‘settings’ been so narrowed as to render the sensor useless for practical clinical purposes?

Jo Fannon, Danny’s 1:1 worker on the morning of his death seemed nearly as uninformed.
The Tozers’ barrister, Ben McCormack asked her, “You mentioned earlier that the only time you’d heard it was when he was having private time, was there any chance anyone would have turned it off?”
“No,” said Ms Fannon, “You’d never turn it off.”
“Had it ever been set off by someone sat on the bed talking to Danny?” asked Mr. McCormack.
“No,” said Ms. Fannon. “It required momentum.”
Mr. McCormack persisted.  “You mentioned it was changed, were you aware of the defects, what was wrong?”
“I wasn’t aware of the defects,” said Ms Fannon, “But it was replaced.”

I may have mentioned that G uses a number of machines.  They alarm from time to time.  If they do, I NEED to know why, in order to be sure that the action I take is appropriate and also to be aware for the future if there is a pattern of events.  If there is a pattern of events, I need to know the underlying causes: Is G unwell, or is there an intrinsic flaw in the tech?  Machines provide information.  Some do a limited amount of analysis for you, within human-defined parameters and algorithms.  They do NOT replace thinking, and they are absolutely pants at intuition and human empathy.  It’s more than regrettable that some people don’t seem so hot on these human functions either.

Now, we all know there are numpties who will take the battery out of their smoke alarm because their inability to master Toast-Making Without Charring means inconvenient decibel-levels.  But I was trying to imagine what staff would have done if a real fire alarm had gone off.  And I bet it wouldn’t have been to call out the engineers to modify the noise.

“Hi, Maple Avenue here, can you send out engineers to turn the fire alarm down? Keeps making a helluva racket. We want it so it only goes off if the fire moves in a certain way, with a bit of momentum.”

Quite apart from anything else, they’d have been as at risk as the residents of getting fried.  Because it would have been their lives on the line, and not just Danny’s, they’d  have dialled 999 for the Fire Brigade, straight away, no question.  So why were the engineers, not the emergency (medical) services, called for Danny?  Did he as an individual not matter?

It’s worse than alarming.  It’s terrifying.

Unsweet Sixteen.

Tags

#7DaysofAction, #justiceforallthedudes, (un)accountability, adult LD services, institutions, learning disability, The ATU Scandal, true stories

Today’s SevenDaysOfAction post, “16 Years”, asks us to put ourselves in the shoes of Tony Hickmott, who has spent 16 years, from age 24 to 40, in an ATU, and think about what we ourselves accomplished in those 16 years.

Between my 24th and 40th birthdays, I:

• Finished my postgraduate degree
• Worked for five different employers, then began working from home
• Sang in a dozen different opera productions
• Bought a flat, sold it, bought a house, sold it, moved to another one
• Travelled in Europe, Asia and South America
• Attended the weddings of many friends and the christenings of their babies
• Attended one family funeral and one friend’s funeral
• Got married and had two children
• Began a further postgraduate qualification
• Made many friends and hosted them as guests in my own home
• Spent at least one weekend a month walking in the wild places of Britain
• Went to plays, concerts, the cinema, firework displays, fairs, ceilidhs, restaurants, dinners and parties
• Went to bed in the wee small hours rather oftener than I probably should have

And

• Left not one permanent footprint on the sands of time, without regretting a single minute of it.

Tony Hickmott hasn’t left a mark on history either.  In his case, it’s been because he’s been locked up, for no crime, without hope of appeal or reprieve, in near-solitary confinement, as a publicly-funded patient of a privately-run Assessment and Treatment Unit.

Sixteen bitter years.

Common Trials: The Coordination Conundrum.

Tags

institutions, learning disability, medication, mothers, NHS

I’ve just spent 2 hours making phone calls to a dozen different people, trying to make sure that G will be safe during an upcoming hospital admission.  My phone line must be white-hot by now and it’s a good thing we have hard floors, or I’d have worn the carpet down to the canvas, pacing back and forth.  I have to stand and pace when I’m making this sort of phone-call; I need to keep my energy levels high in the face of incomprehension, it’s-not-my-job, and we-don’t-do-that.  Because I understand all too well what may happen – and what is likely to happen – if I don’t persuade people to see things from “just Mum’s” viewpoint, it becomes my job, and I have to do that.  All the while, there is a constant worry at the back of my mind, that if I rub someone up the wrong way, I may end up tarred with the ‘inappropriate involvement’ brush from paintpots like this recent case (where censure was warranted) and #LBInquest (12.14 onwards) (where it most definitely was not).

It is, as they say on Facebook, complicated.  Specialisation applies to administrative as well as clinical staff.  The admissions team schedules theatre slots, but you have to speak to the ward about bed spaces and to the departmental teams about staff complement.  The procedure that G is about to have is normally ‘day case’, but G’s complex interlocking medical conditions mean a three-day stay for pre-op stabilisation and post-op observation.  In turn, that means that the surgical team need to co-ordinate with respiratory and gastro, that an HDU bed must be booked, that the anaesthetics team need to be reminded that they have been warned of the extra wrinkles.

It’s very obvious from the letter advising me of the provisional admission date, that none of this has got through to the admissions team.  It’s a standard day-case admission letter, and if I felt inclined thus to waste my time, I could go through it furiously underlining every other word and muttering, “Wrong,” “Nope,” “Ain’t happening,” “In your dreams and my nightmares, sunshine”.

Instead, I burn through my phone bill, a deliberate smile on my face to help me pour bouncy-walk-induced positive energy down the line, talking to clerks, secretaries, nurses and answerphones, to get the whole thing orchestrated.  Each time, I repeat all the name, rank and serial number information with enthusiasm, as if I couldn’t possibly think of anything else I’d prefer to do on a summer morning.  I sympathise with technology glitches, make jokes, throw in a compliment here and fulsome thanks there.  I note numbers, names, who has agreed to do what.

Now, I have to wait and see (and maybe make a few follow-up phone calls in a week or 10 days).  I did all this four months ago, only for the procedure to be cancelled at the last minute.  It was scheduled for February half term and too many staff were away, taking winter holidays with their kids.  Of course staff need a work-life balance, their children deserve holidays, and I hope every last one of them had a thoroughly enjoyable time.

It’s just …. well, some of us get to go ski-ing.  And some of us feel we are permanently skating on thin ice.

Four Hours With Franklin.

Tags

appropriate vocabulary, autism, institutions, kindness, learning disability

Now that E is away at University and unlikely to be occupying his room for more than a couple of weeks at a time, the children’s Papa – a tidy soul to the core – has ambitions to turn the space a little more guest-friendly, by turfing out some of E’s more juvenile possessions.  The practicalities of this aspiration have in the first instance fallen to me. To anyone who knows me, it will be no revelation to be told that I am absolutely useless at throwing things away.

How do I know whether E is still attached to the Lego star-cruiser that he so laboriously constructed eight years ago and which has been poised for takeoff from the top shelf of the bookcase ever since?  I dare not even touch it, lest I accidentally dismantle one of its delicate protrusions and put myself permanently in the dog-house.  Ditto the Airfix, the sporting trophies, the Warhammer sets.

“Just go through the books, then”, said P.  Nope.  While P sees a rummage through bookshelves as an chance to winnow out any that haven’t been read for a while, I see it as an invitation to reacquaint myself with old friends.  One doesn’t put old friends out the door.  From The Very Hungry Caterpillar to The Tale of Samuel Whiskers, to Wolf Brother, to Smith, to The Hunger Games, to King Hereafter, E’s bookshelves are a coded chronicle of his life with us, and each of them is still a darn good read.  So having pulled all the books off the shelves and replaced them, I settled down, slightly guilty, very exasperated, and in need of cheering up and soothing, with a couple from his mid-primary-school stage: Mij Kelly‘s Forty-Eight Hours With Franklin and Franklin Falls Apart.

The thing with good books, I find, is that on re-reading, you come across bits that resonate as new, because you have changed in the interim.  I first read Three Men In A Boat in my very late teens, on a Scotland-to-London train, disrupting the entire carriage with honks and snorts of mirthful recognition at the posing, mock-heroics and ineptitude of the young-adult heroes.  Twenty years later, with the benefit of knowing my brother’s personality-plus Jack Russell, I read it again and was convulsed by the contributions to expedition-packing – long-forgotten – of Montmorency the terrier.

Re-reading Franklin, the adventures of an accidentally-animated shop dummy, I laughed again, as I expected to, but I also began to see another layer that didn’t appear to me ten or twelve years ago.  Franklin, born into the world of humans as a six-foot baby, has no understanding of people or how things work, which leads him to repeated close shaves with law-enforcement.  He doesn’t talk, although he learns to repeat sounds, words and phrases that he hears.  He is literal-minded.  Asked to lend a hand, he does what any sensible shop-dummy would do: unscrews one of his at the wrist and passes it over.  He relies heavily on his flesh-and-blood siblings, Gertie and Joe, to protect him from the consequences of his unwittingly disastrous actions. They understand, from a knowledge of his past, what his probable intentions are and what his apparently out-of-context repetitions of stock phrases mean.  They know that when he says, “Ow, ow, ow, motorbike stars”, he means his legs are hurting and “Body no Perkins, body cow”, means actions were stupid (like the cows) but not malicious (like Mr. Perkins).

Well-meaning adults, such as Joe and Gertie’s parents, don’t quite get this, at least not until they have spent time with Franklin and begun learning to understand him.  And even then, the parents get it wrong, initially thinking only of how presenting papers on Franklin to international conferences will enhance their standing as scientists.  Strangers, pardonably, think Franklin is weird or rude when he addresses them as ‘Podgy’.  They aren’t to know this is his attempt at complimenting them for being a ‘prodigy’.  And some strangers, learning just how different Franklin is, see him as an opportunity for money-making: as a freak-show exhibit; as a subject for containment and study; as a tabloid newspaper headline.  In pursuit of their own aims, they ignore or dismiss Franklin’s rights to bodily integrity, autonomy and self-determination.

Echolalia, language differences and communication difficulties.  Incomprehension of the world around him.  Reliance on others’ attunement.  At risk of exploitation and/or incarceration.  Not quite human.  Sounds very familiar, doesn’t it?

Perhaps that’s why there was never a third Franklin book.  Perhaps, having created her living mannequin and seen him evolve, maybe without her realising it, into someone who looks very like an adult with learning disabilities and autism, Kelly just couldn’t imagine a future for him.

P.S. The Franklin books are long out of print, but occasionally resurface second-hand.
They are available together as an e-book called The Franklin Files.

Here Come The Girls.

Tags

#justiceforallthedudes, care in the community, independent living, institutions, kindness, Local Authorities, NHS

Six weeks ago, I was wondering, “where are the girls?”.  A couple have emerged onto social media since.  Although neither is in exactly the same situation as the lads who featured in The ATU Scandal #7DaysofAction, I am noticing same old themes of waiting until a situation turns into a crisis, counterproductive provision, failures to keep safe, the dangers and indifference of total institutions, isolation, the powerlessness of loving families, the difficulties of leaving an ATU, financial skewing that makes it advantageous for mental-health provision to hang on to people and disincentivises Local Authorities from bringing them home, and terrible, all-pervading, stress and fear for inmates and families alike.

Sophie doesn’t have a learning disability, as far as I am aware, but she does have bipolar disorder.  She is currently in St. Andrew’s hospital in Northampton.  This hospital, a very large one headquartered on the old Northampton ‘lunatic asylum‘ site, is not actually part of the NHS; it is a private institution with charitable status that bids for NHS contracts.  Sophie’s family, who live in Middlesex, have concluded that the hospital is not suitable for Sophie.  According to the petition for her transfer, it’s making her life and her family’s life hell.  The family have tried everything they can think of to get her home, but “nothing works”.  Her family believe she is treated badly where she is and is not kept safe.  Sophie has managed to self harm on many occasions, sometimes very seriously.  Her family are ‘desperate’ to have her closer to home so that they can support her.  They say: “Sophie is 21, she is a beautiful, caring, lovely young lady who just wants to be with her family.  She suffers with bipolar but she is not a criminal, so she should not be locked away like a prisoner.  To be honest, prisoners have a better quality of life than Sophie does in St. Andrew’s.  She doesn’t receive basic human rights and is not kept safe.  We need her closer to her loving family.”

The second young lady is not in an ATU – yet.  Her name is Emily, she is 19 and profoundly disabled by her autism and learning disabilities.  She needs 24-hour, 3:1 care.  For the last few years, she has been living in a residential school with visits to her parents’ home in Shropshire, but in less than three weeks, when term ends, she will have aged out of the school system.  So far, she doesn’t have anyplace else to live either, despite her family’s long-running and increasingly frantic efforts to find her a home of her own with proper supports.

They have been through all the hoopla of trying to secure her a liveable income (which was initially denied) and a house.  They have been asking their Local Authority and Social Work departments for help and support, which has been in very short supply and seems mostly to have consisted of ‘signposting’ to providers.  Wrong boxes were ticked by official form-fillers, meaning that Emily has missed out on some potentially suitable houses.  Those which were offered are all unsuitable for one reason or another – too far from family, too small, too insecure.  The only currently empty property which, according to Emily’s swathe of professional therapeutic and medical reports, is suitable, is said to be in leasehold limbo between the Council and the Housing Association.  Apparently, it will not be made available to Emily anyway, because it is earmarked for adults returning from ATUs.  But if Emily doesn’t have somewhere of her own to live in two-and-a-half weeks’ time, she will end up in an ATU.  Her family have been told that, absent a home of her own, there will be no other options.

Let’s just think about that for a minute.  Emily’s education, health and social care professionals have known for nearly two decades that Emily will always need care and support.  Her 18th and 19th birthdays can have come as a surprise to no-one.  Yet there has been no forward planning for the end of her schooldays.  Unless someone does something very soon, Emily will be placed in a facility intended for (a) assessments (which have already been done – exhaustively), and (b) treatment (which she doesn’t need and which can’t help her since she has autism, not a mental illness).  She will be in uncongenial surroundings that will be very likely to exacerbate her difficulties with making sense of the world, and she probably will be subject to the forensic, carrot-and-stick, behaviour-modification-restraint-and-heavy-medication regimes that have left too many dudes in a terrible state; and the prospects of which have Emily’s mother in agonies of terrified apprehension.

Yesterday, whilst her father was travelling to visit yet another far-flung shoebox property remote from Emily’s family and home town, the car encountered a pothole that has left it inoperable due to suspension problems.  It’s not the only thing that is breaking down.  If Emily ends up in psychiatric care, I fear her Mum may just be driven to join her, as the strain is very obviously getting to within a whisker of being too much for her.

*****

*****

Picnics, PBs and politics.

Tags

(un)accountability, institutions

Yet more grim news from #JusticeforLB.  Tim Smart, the ‘Interim Chair’ parachuted in by NHSI to sort out Southern Health, is doing a fair old impression of someone bucking for a change of name to Tim (Possibly-)Nice-but-Dim, as he seizes the first opportunity to fail to engage with the public.  Deeply disappointing.

Meanwhile, Mark Neary is struggling (again) with bureaucratic stupidity at all levels of government, in his quest to ensure that Steven can do perfectly ordinary things like go swimming.  He’s also struggling with ‘experts by non-experience‘ who insist, in quite spectacular displays of non-person-centredness and ignorance of non-directiveness and in the face of all the evidence, that he ‘should’ be having a good experience of Personal Budgets (PBs) and Direct Payments.  He isn’t.

It reminds me of an argument I had with my tutor about political philosophies.  We were reading a series of novels that included Le Rouge et Le Noir, La Faute de l’Abbé Mouret and L’Espoir and got into a big stushie about secularism, anticlericalism, and Communism (amongst other things).  The tutor argued that Communism was a secular political philosophy.  I argued that it was an anticlerical religion because it had articles of faith, such as the required belief in the historical inevitability of dictatorship of the proletariat; a millenarian postulate, if ever there was one.  We eventually agreed that any system would work, provided everyone in it was of perfect good-will; but that since people are without exception imperfect, no system could work flawlessly.  We also agreed that in practical terms, neither theocracy nor Soviet Communism were very appealing.

And the same applies to Foundation Trusts and Personal Budgets and other things like Education, Health and Care Plans.  They are not necessarily either good or bad things in and of themselves, but like all theoretical constructs, are, in the real world, just (and only) as good as their implementation.  In turn, implementation is generally as good as the people responsible for it.  It’s no good saying that the service structure is excellent if the services themselves are execrable and delivered or run by the malicious, the hidebound or the simply uninterested.

Whatever system you’re engaging with, you’d better hope, or pray, to whatever entities you think may influence the outcome, that you get good people controlling things.

And meantime, be prepared to shovel shite.

I.Can’t.Even.

Tags

#justiceforLB, (un)accountability, Connor Sparrowhawk, institutions, learning disability, NHS, preventable deaths, Sloven Health

This latest #JusticeforLB development is almost beyond comment.  It does, however, throw into sharp relief the siege mentality obviously operating within Southern Health; and speaks volumes about Sloven culture and the messages purposefully circulated within, and outwith, the organisation.

The transcript below comes from a message left on LB’s mother’s office answerphone from someone claiming to work for Sloven.  It doesn’t much matter whether the caller is a member of management, a lower-ranking staff-member, or just an unconnected crank; she has obviously absorbed and internalised an execrable attitude to LB and to his mother, and feels justified in spewing it out.  A toxic attitude that aligns precisely with Sloven’s dealings with LB and his family, all through the more-than-three-years since LB was admitted to STATT.

And Sloven’s response?  Of a piece with their previous form, and with the call.

Sloven are not setting up an enquiry, actively seeking the culprit and requiring staff to disclose information.  They’re not even setting up an internal enquiry and asking for all available information.  Oh no.  They will, apparently, set up a ‘full internal investigation’, if and when they receive ‘any information’ in response to their ‘urging’.

Pathetic.  As always.

 – – – – –

Good morning, hello. Hi, I believe this is a message for Dr. Sara Ryan, um, I’ve been seeing on the media about your son, your poor son that died under the care of Southern Health.  I work for Southern Health and I’m, it, it’s awful that you’ve lost him, I’m so sorry that you have done, um, ’s tragic, and … I hope you find some closure after the report, the, um, issue of the GMB … CQC report today, but I do think you are being reall- very vindictive.  I think you are a vindictive cow.  On TV all the time, ummm, slating the NHS Southern Health.  With your intelligence background, you know, as much as anybody else knows, that Southern Health only took over those units in Oxfordshire recentl-, you know, the recent months before your son died.  You know, with your background, it takes a while to make changes in anywhere, and I think now you’ve just become a bitch and you want some attention, but you are vindictive, you are unpleasant, and you are a nasty cow.

This message was recorded at 9.33am on Friday April 29th.  To save this message press 1.  <beep> To-  Message saved.

– – – – –

Reparations and Resignations.

Tags

#justiceforallthedudes, #justiceforLB, (un)accountability, institutions, Local Authorities, Sloven Health

After several days of carefully-worded prevarications, the Prime Minister has finally had to admit that in claiming he had nothing to do with offshore tax havens, he was in pants-on-fire territory.

Media coverage appears to agree that not coming clean at the earliest opportunity was a particularly stupid move. “It’s never the offence, it’s always the cover-up“, says one headline.  Cameron doesn’t appear to have helped himself by sounding plummily and defensively irritated when being questioned.

Worse than merely causing offence, or laying himself open to the most caustic ridicule, it also leaves the PM under ongoing suspicion that there may well be more revelations to come.

It’s not that he participated in legally permissible, if morally questionable, financial dealings.  It’s that he didn’t tell the truth when asked.  Even if he didn’t outright lie, he was evasive and shifty.  The public are not daft.  They can spot shiftiness when they see it; while for the media, a squirm is catnip and the scent of a buried bone: all the incentive they need to keep on digging. Cameron’s failure of candour is what has led to calls today for his resignation; for many, he has forfeited the level of public trust considered necessary for him to continue in office.  He could confess every little peccadillo he’s ever committed, and still people would wonder if there were more.

In the same newsfeed as the multiple pictures of the beleaguered PM, came this report, on how the Oregon State University has changed the way it handles sexual assault cases linked to the college or its students.  In 1998, Brenda Tracy was gang-raped by four men including two U of O students on sports scholarships.  Despite the accused men’s admissions, the investigation was mishandled and dropped.  But in late 2014, after sports journalist John Canzano wrote a piece on the incident, the president of the University, Ed Ray, contacted Ms. Tracy to apologise.  Ray had only joined Oregon State in 2003, five years after the assault.  Ms Tracy considered his apology genuine and is now working with the University to improve its approach to the problem of sexual violence by or towards students.  In contrast, Kristin Samuelson and Laura Hanson, who were also badly treated by the University following student-linked rapes, are still without proper apologies or closure.  Both were discouraged from reporting the rapes, and Hanson later discovered that the University had taken possession of her supposedly confidential counselling records without her permission.

Back in the BC days (Before Children), I worked at one time for a Local Authority, and every election day (which was most years, as our councillors retired by thirds rather than in one fell swoop), I would end up in a school or community hall with an electoral register, some rickety plywood booths and some very battered black tin boxes, as Presiding Officer of a polling station.  The duty was mostly mind-numbingly and bum-numbingly tedious, and often foot-numbingly cold as well, but on this particular day, the station was in the community hall of an old people’s home, so it was at least warm.  I arrived at 6.30, set up the booths, the tables and the notices, and nipped through to the loos, which were opposite the day-room.  They were nicely kitted out with modern fittings, and discreet stacks of incontinence supplies in each cubicle.  However, when I next paid a visit around elevenses, there was a large blob of shit in the middle of the floor, with a trail of smaller blobs leading to one of the cubicles.  I went to find the day manager, who thanked me and said it would be dealt with.  At lunchtime, around 2pm, the blobs were still there, each dried to a darker crustiness on top.  I spoke to the manager again.  “It’ll be dealt with!”, she said, sharply.  But by 5pm, the shit was still there – only someone had trodden in it, and a trail of stinking footprints and zimmer-frame skid-marks led back across the corridor carpet towards the day-room.  This time, the manager was nowhere to be found, and although I mentioned it to someone in a uniform dress, the smears and lumps were still in evidence when I paid a final visit at 10pm before taking the boxes to the count.

The following morning, I went to find a colleague on Community Care to ask if there was anything that could be done.  “It’s not about it being unpleasant for me,” I explained, feeling close to tears.  “It’s that if they are that way in front of outsiders, what are they like to the people who can’t get away?  I wouldn’t want my Granny or Grandad in a place where nobody cares if shit gets tracked all over, and I don’t think it’s acceptable for anybody else’s Granny or Grandad, either.”  My colleague hugged me.  “Don’t you worry, I’ll see to it.”

A few days later, I was accosted by the Electoral Registration Officer.  “What do you think you’re doing, complaining about E House’s treatment of residents?  That’s none of your business.  The manager’s threatening not to let me have the hall for elections in future.”  I suggested that we could take it to the Chief Executive, as Returning Officer.  The ERO declined; we both knew which way that would go.

One of my responsibilities at the Council was Ombudsman cases.  Underlying causes of complaints were routine, even trivial matters; what got them taken up by the Ombudsman was maladministration: a failure to ‘do it right’, often compounded by an obstinate refusal to recognise that the aggrieved had just cause for complaint, and frequently aggravated by attempts to blame the complainer for ‘causing’ the situation complained of.

One of the earliest cases in the files concerned a disabled tenant of municipal housing, who had been asking to have repairs and renovations to her home accorded a higher priority, as her condition was being worsened by the current conditions in the house.  The housing officer seemed to have treated the request with extreme jobsworthiness, interpreting any discretion in the housing regulations to mean, “although we could accede to your request, we don’t absolutely have to, – so we won’t”.  It was not until the tenant, after over two years of patient pleading, went to the Ombudsman, that an officer from the Council actually went round to see the state of the place, which, as it turned out, was shocking.

The officer’s report outlined the work to be done, with costs and timescales, detailed the considerable extra costs the tenant had incurred as a result of having to live in an unsuitable property and outlined the weekly amount needed to cover her living expenses in alternative accommodation until such time as the work was finished.  The Chief Executive’s handwritten note in reply was brief. “DO IT. Start NOW. I want a weekly update.”  A further, typed, letter to the tenant apologised fully for the specific failings of the Council, explained the arrangements proposed to remedy them and asked for the tenant, if she agreed, to telephone her approval to the Chief Exec’s office so that delays could be kept to a minimum.  It also requested permission for the Chief Executive to visit the  tenant once the works were done, so that he could satisfy himself that everything had been sorted out.

The final document in the case-file stated that the reporting officer had visited the tenant after the Ombudsman’s case had been closed.  The tenant had had no further problems, was fully satisfied with the way her case had been handled. The officer added, somewhat smarmily, that the tenant had had a number of complimentary things to say about ‘a certain Chief Executive’, for having visited to present her with in-person apologies from the Council, a cheque reimbursing her previous expenditure and flowers and chocolates to accompany a ‘New Home’ card.

That was the Chief.  He was a wily political operator and undoubtedly autocratic, but his fundamental concern – above his staff and beyond the councillors – was the people, whether as a collective, as small groups, or as individuals, whom the Council was there to serve.  I liked and admired him and was very sorry when, a few years later, the Council found itself mired in a scandal whose origins predated his appointment; and, after it all ended in the inevitable disaster, he felt obliged to resign.  Although the causes of the scandal were nothing to do with him, he had been unable to make it go away, and he recognised that someone else needed to take over in order to allow a fresh start with a clean slate.  Like Ed Ray, the Chief accepted that although he had had no power over what had gone wrong, he did have the power to help right it for the future, and he took the necessary action, however unpleasant it was for himself.

The original administrators dealing with Brenda Tracy, and with the Council tenant, were incapable of seeing that they had got things wrong, and badly.  In both cases, there needed to be a change of administration before the people affected by the wrongdoing could be satisfied that they would get redress.

It’s a pity a scandal and an outrage that the current Chief Executive and Board of Southern Health can’t see that they need to go for exactly the same reasons.  They are part of the problem, so they can never be part of any satisfactory solution.  However many times they repeat, “We have made changes”, the people affected by their failings will not, cannot, have confidence in these pronouncements, as long as they are spoken by the same old faces that have already proved themselves untrustworthy and two-faced.

For people to have any confidence in Southern Health, Katrina and the Sloves need to resign. Now.

The Ministry of Tragic.

Tags

assessment, fiction, institutions

Good morning, Ms. Parsley, and welcome to St. Mungo’s Mental Elf Hospital Trust.  Perhaps you’d like to tell us a bit about yourself?

“My name is Citrina Parsley and as you know, I’m applying for the post of Witch in Chief.  I always wanted to work in the Elf Service – my father was a Healer and my mother was a Fizz-Tickle Therapist – so after doing my degree at Hogwets College of Bitchcraft and Bollockry, I applied to Nollege College, to do a course in Wizmanagement (Healery).  In the holidays, I got myself an internship in the Department of Stealth.  Well, the Department of Stealth and Total Obscurity, it was, then, and after that I had two years on the Ministry of Tragic’s MsManagement training programme.

“Then I spent five years Pottering around various projects while wearing a badge that I had Charmed to display a variety of fancy-sounding titles, before skipping overseas to hone my msmanagment skills somewhere nice and remote.  Here, I had overladyship and msmanagement of all magical and non-magical operations within the coven: goading two dozen disciplines to deliver enchanting sorceries for pea-Knuts. My work saw a vast increase in the numbers of victims of magical misfortunes arriving at our door, so I arranged for the construction of a monstrous maze to manage patient flows and stymie new arrivals.  I also planned new buildings and worked with the stoneraisers, the Chief Wizard and Healers to plan the new Almshouse (including futurology and service transmogrification) for the agreed amount of Galleons.

When I came back, I did a year as a Sorcery consultant – working with all the top Adminwizards of the Almshouses and Covens in my area to source saucers – and then I landed a plum role at St. Werburgh & St. Walstan’s, redisorganising the entire establishment of what were acknowledged as the most disorganised dungeons in the country.  By means of Polyjuice Potion, I impersonated the Chief Wizard both internally and externally during this period.  I led and managed all the magical disciplines, properties and accoutrements, plus conjuring, transmogrification, sorcery development and Paracelcian msmanagement.  I created a new management clique in each area, to control conveyance and transmogrification through staff capacitation alongside implicit imponderables.

“My next move was to community magimedicine – providing the vanguardium leviosa for thousands in the magical community and msmanaging millions of Galleons.  I stuck that for over three years until a better opportunity came up in the Hufflepuff Herbology Foundation Trust, which in turn led to me to the position of Witch-in-Chief at Slytherin Fountain Elf Trust, where I’ve been for the last five years.”

Thank you for that.  Is there anything else you would like to tell us?

“I was awarded Witch Weekly’s Most Charming Coiffure of the Year.”

You’ve brought your academic certificates with you but we’re having a little trouble with this Gothick printing on the Hogwets diploma – does it say your degree was in Healing?

“No.”

Oh.  Definitely not Potioneering – is it Herbalism?

“No.”

Could you help us out a little, here, Ms. Parsley? 

“Leylines.”

Leylines?  Leylines.  Well, that’s, er, certainly an unusual route into the Healing sphere.  With a Healer father and a Fizz-Tickle therapist mother, it might have been expected that you would have studied Healing or a related discipline yourself, rather than geomancy?

“Well, of course you’re a Healer, aren’t you Doctor Flssstfckmnst?  I know all about you, He Who Cannot Be Pronounced.  Just like my father, all, ‘You’ll never amount to anything, Citrina, if you don’t get straight O grades. Can’t study Healing with E’s, you know.  They may call them Exceeds Expectations but I call them not good Enough.’  Even when he didn’t say it, I knew he meant it.”

Would you like a tissue, Ms. Parsley?  Well, if Healing wasn’t for you, did you not consider one of the auxiliary professions?  Herbologism, say, or Potioneering or Fizz-Tickle Therapy like your mother?

“What, and have Dad snarking at me the way he did at my Mum?  No thanks.  Anyway, I showed him.  So what if I only got A’s?  My grades were Acceptable rather than Outstanding, but who wants to be an outlier?  My degree may be in leylines, but I’ve had literally hundreds of Healers working for me, and if I felt like it, I could make ’em widdle their drawers with fear; I had the power to hire, fire, or petrify.  Haha!  How do you like them apples, Dr. Daddio?  And once I’m Witch in Chief here, you’ll say, How High?, Mr. Boring Chairman, when I say Jump, or I’ll turn you into a frog!”

Fascinating.  Tell me, Ms. Parsley, do you really think you are here for a job?  Don’t you remember you were brought here suffering from self-induced Delusionaria Grandiosa and this is your admission interview?

“I’m admitting nothing.  And I’m not staying here if I’m not going to be in charge!”

Come, come, Ms. Parsley, you’ll find your time here will be much easier if you just resign yourself to undergoing treatment.

“I’m not resigning.”

***