In January, a 12-year-old girl was locked into a “seclusion” room in a hospital in Staffordshire. The room contained a platform with a mattress on it, a moulded basin and toilet, and nothing else. For almost 24 hours a day, her only human contact was through a hatch in the door. She was held in that room just short of eight weeks.
“Becky” has complex emotional and behavioural needs, and seemed determined to kill herself. The latest crisis involved her being taken by social workers to an emergency placement in a Travelodge, where she trashed the room and assaulted staff and police. Although she was just 12, police brought her before magistrates. In the holding cell, she tried to overdose. En route to another emergency placement, Becky escaped from a car, ran along a motorway, climbed a building and tried to jump off. After she had been checked out in A&E, it turned out there was not a single Ofsted-regulated and, importantly, secure placement anywhere in the country for Becky to go.
