More than two-thirds of England’s specialist support centres for victims of sexual assault or abuse have been found to have flaws in the care they offer in their most recent full inspections, the Observer can reveal.
Almost half were found to be breaching their minimum legal obligations to victims in their last full inspection, with problems ranging from a failure to deal with suicide and self-harm risks, cleaning so bad it risked contaminating forensic evidence collected for criminal cases, and failures to do adequate background checks on the staff working with victims.
Sexual Assault Referral Centres (SARCs) are used by thousands of child and adult victims of sexual assault and abuse each year to offer everything from psychological and medical support to the gathering of forensic evidence for criminal prosecutions.
Rape Crisis England and Wales, a leading sexual violence support charity, said it was “deeply concerned” by the findings and called for “serious and urgent actions” to address the problems.
Inspections at facilities across England found that staff had not undertaken adequate training, while others were failing to adequately safeguard victims at risk of self-harm and suicide or to properly do DBS (disclosure and barring service) background checks on the staff working at their centres.
Meanwhile, at least four inspections found centres at risk of being not forensically clean, which created the potential to contaminate samples taken from victims.
While the Care Quality Commission (CQC), the independent regulator of health and social care in England, inspects SARCs to ensure they are meeting legal minimums for care outlined by the government, it is not allowed to issue individual grades for each centre as it does with hospitals or care homes.
However, it does produce individual reports into each centre, outlining any recommended improvements or legal breaches. By reading each of the most recent reports, the Observer discovered that 72% were found to be in need of improvements.
Most SARC centres are outsourced by the government to private firms. Twenty-five of the 43 English SARC centres assessed by the CQC are run by two firms – the security giant G4S Health Services and the private healthcare firm Mountain Healthcare. When inspected by the CQC, centres run by both companies had more problems than their NHS-run counterparts. At facilities run by G4S and Mountain Healthcare, 80% and 73% respectively were in need of improvement. For the 17 NHS-run centres the figure was 70%.
About half of all SARC centres had not been inspected in three years – meaning quality could have improved, or worsened, since.
The Observer understands that the CQC does not proactively inspect SARC sites at set intervals but uses a reactive model when concerns about quality are raised. Our figures are based on published lists of SARC centres on the CQC website.
“It can be incredibly difficult for victims to report a rape or sexual assault, so to hear that they are receiving less than adequate care when doing so is not acceptable,” said Jayne Butler, chief executive of Rape Crisis England and Wales.
“It is evident that serious and urgent actions must now be taken to ensure all SARCs are meeting their duty of care to support victims reporting a sexual offence.”
A spokesperson for G4S Health Services said: “Our SARCs are a vital resource in supporting survivors of sexual assault or rape, where we are committed to providing the best level of care for those who require our services.
“All of our latest CQC inspection ratings are compliant with the regulations, with no outstanding improvement actions.”
When the CQC finds SARC centres to be in breach of the legal minimums for care in an inspection, a subsequent check-in – usually a remote “desk review” – is done to ensure that they are acting on the mandated “improvement actions” put forward by inspectors that they would have to implement to continue operating and offering adequate care to users.
G4S added: “Where recommendations were suggested by inspectors, they have since been embedded.”
An NHS spokesperson said: “All providers – whether they are NHS or independently run – are expected to provide safe, high-quality care and deliver on all their contractual and legal obligations. The NHS will continue to work closely with the CQC to monitor, identify and take appropriate action where it is needed.”
Mountain Healthcare declined to comment.
