Minister vows action after Winterbourne scandal
THE Government has promised to "deliver real change" in the provision of care for disabled people in the wake of the Winterbourne View scandal.
Norman Lamb, right, minister of state for care services, said the Department of Health was working with other agencies to provided "real improvements in the quality of care".
In a written ministerial statement, Mr Lamb also vowed to produce an agreement setting out the responsibilities of government, service commissioners, providers, professional bodies and regulators.
Mr Lamb's immediate predecessor, Paul Burstow, said the scandal at the private hospital near Bradley Stoke had shown the need for a new offence of "corporate wilful neglect" to prosecute care home-owners for allowing abuse to go on behind closed doors.
Business Cards From Only £10.95 Delivered www.myprint-247.co.uk
View detailsOur heavyweight cards have FREE UV silk coating, FREE next day delivery & VAT included. Choose from 1000's of pre-designed templates or upload your own artwork. Orders dispatched within 24hrs.
Terms: Visit our site for more products: Business Cards, Compliment Slips, Letterheads, Leaflets, Postcards, Posters & much more. All items are free next day delivery. www.myprint-247.co.uk
Contact: 01858 468192
Valid until: Friday, May 31 2013
He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that the long-stay units like Winterbourne View should be closed.
"The companies who take the money – if they fail, and in this case they more than failed, they abused people – they need to be corporately accountable as well as the staff who stood in the dock last week," he said.
"We have corporate manslaughter on the statute books and I think there is now a case for corporate wilful neglect as well."
Last week six members of staff – four support workers and two nurses – were jailed for between six months and two years for their roles in the abuse. Five more received suspended jail terms.
The BBC's Panorama exposed the scandal in June last year when it broadcast undercover journalist Joseph Casey's secret footage, recorded when he was employed at Winterbourne View as a care worker.
Last night, Panorama showed a second programme on the hospital and alleges that NHS safeguarding alerts have been issued for at least 19 of its 51 former patients since they were moved to other care homes.
Comments