Manchester council will ask the government for a public inquiry into a mental health unit at the heart of a BBC Panorama investigation aired last month. The calls for an inquiry come with fears that alleged abuse of patients at the Edenfield Centre, as claimed by the BBC, is happening at other Greater Manchester’s mental health treatment units.
Staff, including support workers, and registered nurses, were secretly filmed by an undercover Panorama reporter embedded in the unit from March to June of this year. The footage appeared to show patients being bullied, humiliated, swore at, and taunted.
Police have begun a criminal investigation which centres on a facility in the grounds of the former Prestwich Hospital in Bury. Sources have told the M.E.N. that twenty staff members from the Edenfield Centre, a secure unit, for adults, have been suspended.
READ MORE: Twenty staff members reportedly suspended at mental health unit after alleged abuse of patients
Andrew Maloney, deputy chief executive of Greater Manchester Mental Health (GMMH) NHS Foundation Trust which runs the centre, told councillors at a health scrutiny meeting today (October 12) about the action taken in response.
Disciplinary procedures started as soon as GMMH was informed of the allegations, he said, and a 'significant number of staff' were suspended.
Senior clinical and operational management staff were deployed to the centre which has now been closed to new admissions to ensure appropriate working practices. And an independent clinical review of the centre is now under way and is expected to report its finding to the trust's board by the end of this month.
However, Manchester's health scrutiny committee was not satisfied with the response, describing the situation at the centre as a 'catastrophic disaster'. Labour councillor Pat Karney said the 'failure of senior leadership' merits a public inquiry, saying it is 'unimaginable' that the issues were not picked up.
Other councillors questioned whether whistleblowers had reported these issues at the centre to the trust before the BBC Panorama investigation. They added that reports presented by GMMH to the committee in the past, sharing apparent progress made by the trust now appear to be ‘fabrication’ in light of the BBC programme.
“This is really nothing short of a catastrophic disaster and hugely disappointing, particularly given we have had a series of reports to this committee from your organisation that pointed to great improvements,” said Councillor Basil Curley.
“We believed that, rightly so, because it was done by you that it was accurate and reflected the level of service that was being delivered. Now we realise it was a long way from what was being given to people.
“This gap between the rhetoric and the delivery is huge. It’s almost impossible to comprehend. The confidence we have, my confidence personally, in the reports you do has gone out of the window.”
“I fully understand you have a great number of well qualified, hugely committed people who work in your organisation," he added. "But it appears that you have systemic failure that’s on a magnitude that’s hard to understand.”
“Reports you’ve done in the past that told us how well you were doing here and now, and what the plans were going forward, all of which seems like a fabrication now.”
Mr Maloney said he could not answer questions about the ongoing investigation due to the sensitive nature of the allegations made by the BBC.
The Edenfield Centre is just one small piece of a sweeping mental health service for the region, run by Greater Manchester Mental Health Trust (GMMH). The scale of the trust has prompted ‘profound concerns’ that similar behaviours shown in the footage could be being exacted on patients elsewhere.
Councillors on the city’s health scrutiny committee also slammed the trust by saying they find it ‘inconceivable’ that management were not made aware of the alleged behaviour towards patients by whistleblowers before they approached BBC journalists.
“Edenfield is obviously going to be your primary concern here but you have a whole trust,” said Councillor Sarah Russell. “It is extremely unlikely that there were problems at Edenfield that do not exist anywhere else in your organisation.
“The BBC went in because there was a whistleblower. My real question here is that I think it is very unlikely that someone got as far as a BBC journalist without coming to talk to your management on some level first. That seems to me to be quite inconceivable.
“People who get that far really care. They don’t just go to the BBC because they fancy making trouble, they do it because they’re miserable and frustrated.”
Reading out a statement, Greater Manchester Mental Health Trust (GMMH) deputy chief executive told the committee that the BBC did not inform the trust of the footage containing alleged abuse until September, after filming took place from March to June.
Coun Russell hit back: “The statement appears to somehow imply that the problem here is that the BBC didn’t make you aware sooner. Frankly, I think that is tone deaf in the extreme. The BBC were not responsible for the safety of these people. The trust was.
“It is their and your responsibility to keep people safe, it is not the BBC’s responsibility to let you know what you should have heard from your own whistleblowers in the first place.
“It makes me extremely angry on behalf of the residents who were failed. Those residents were entitled to care and they haven’t received it.”
“We’re clear that the trust is the body responsible for the quality of those services, nobody else,” the deputy replied.
Greater Manchester Police's investigation into the allegations is also ongoing. Labour councillor Tom Robinson, who is the executive member for Healthy Manchester and Adult Social Care at the town hall, said he would write to the Secretary of State for Health requesting a public inquiry into the allegations.
He said: "I, like many, watched that documentary and there's a certain point that made me cry.
"We have a duty to those patients who are now victims and the courage demonstrated by their families to go away and do everything we can in partnership with the Greater Manchester Mental Health Trust."
Speaking on behalf of GMMH at the health scrutiny committee meeting, Mr Maloney said: "We are wholeheartedly committed to do whatever it takes to put right these wrongs and to preventing them from happening again."
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