Shocking footage appears to show staff at a secure mental health hospital tickling a convicted murderer.
Secret filming by BBC Panorama captured female employees at at the Edenfield Centre in Prestwich acting in what looked to be a sexualised manner towards male patients. One got on top of a patient, whom the programme said was a murderer, and tickled him.
The one-hour programme that aired on Wednesday captured apparent humiliation, verbal abuse, mocking and assault of patients - plus alleged falsification of medical paperwork.
READ MORE: Hospital staff filmed pinning 'vulnerable' woman to floor
A patient called Joanna was filmed apparently being pinched twice by a member of staff. Another patient had been kept in a seclusion room with just two teddy bears for a year, it is claimed.
The programme also showed one patient being pulled up by a chair to be taken for an injection. They were dragged by the wrist down a corridor, before being mocked with foul language and held down on a bed, the MEN reports.
Panorama also showed a clip involving a patient, Alice. During a 30-minute break from seclusion, she talks about her teddy bears - comforts she was allowed from a previous ward. In the scene, she is told: "You're lucky you've got a straw f*****g bed in there."
Another scene appeared to show a member of staff asking the undercover reporter to get involved in falsifying paperwork - recording that observations of patients had been done when they hadn't. The staff member asks: "Do you want to pretend you have been doing jobs?"
The trust is commissioning an independent clinical review of the Edenfield Centre led by Dr David Fearnely, chief medical officer for Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust, which has already started.
A spokesperson for Greater Manchester Mental Health Foundation Trust said: "We are taking the allegations raised by Panorama very seriously since the BBC sent them to us earlier this month. We have put in place immediate actions to protect patient safety, which is our utmost priority.
"Since then, senior doctors at the Trust have undertaken clinical reviews of the patients affected, we have suspended a number of staff pending further investigations and we have also commissioned an independent clinical review of the services provided at the Edenfield Centre.
"We are working closely with local and national partners including NHS England, the Care Quality Commission and Greater Manchester Police to ensure the safety of these services. We will co-operate fully with all investigations. We owe it to our patients, their families and carers, the public and our staff that these allegations are fully investigated to ensure we provide the best care, every day, for all the communities we serve."
Undercover Hospital: Patients at Risk is available on BBC iPlayer
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