Some autistic youths detained in UK in 'horrific' conditions

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A British Parliamentary committee says some young people with autism or learning disabilities are being detained under "horrific" conditions and has called for an urgent overhaul of the medical system overseeing their treatments.

In a report issued Friday, the Joint Committee on Human Rights said it heard "grim" evidence about how young people with disabilities or autism were being held, calling those detentions "often inappropriate." The panel said it has "lost confidence that the system is doing what it says it is doing" and said the mental health regulator's approach "is not working."

The panel described one particularly distressing episode from the mother of a young man with learning disabilities.

"He had his arm broken in a restraint," the mother, Julie Newcombe, told the committee. "His arm was wrenched up behind his back until the bone snapped."

She added that her son was not taken for emergency treatment until 24 hours later.

Another young man with learning disabilities, identified only as Witness A, said staff frequently restrained him by twisting his hand "in places it should not go." He said he was often thrown into his "cell" and was required to notify staff when he needed to use the bathroom.

"I had to ring a bell to let them know. Sometimes they would answer it, but sometimes they did not," he said.

Another mother said her son, who has serious anxiety problems, was kept in isolation for up to nine hours at a time.

"He started to bang his head against the wall and would bite the wood in the door frame out of desperation," the unidentified woman said.

Harman and her colleagues called for criteria within Britain's Mental Health Act to be narrowed to avoid inappropriate cases of detention. They also recommended a unit with a leader in the prime minister's Cabinet to drive the medical practice reforms and safeguard the human rights of young people with autism or learning disabilities.

According to Britain's National Autistic Society, there has been a 24% rise in people with autism being admitted to mental health hospitals since 2015

According to U.K. law, people detained under the Mental Health Act in Britain "need urgent help for a mental health disorder and are at risk of harm to themselves or others." People held under this act can be treated against their will, but the treatment must be "necessary" and "appropriate."

Ian Trenholm, chief executive of the Care Quality Commission , which oversees health and social services in England, defended his agency's actions, saying many of the recommendations made by the committee were already in place. But he acknowledged more needed to be done.

If any of these kids needed urgent help or was at risk of harming themselves, this will surely teach them a lesson

Ironic, since someone just started a thread about Nurse Ratched and how bad things "used to be"...

I have posted a number of these stories from the UK in recent years which at first surprised me because I tended to think of UK as more advanced then America in this area.

Ian Trenholm, chief executive of the Care Quality Commission , which oversees health and social services in England, defended his agency's actions, saying many of the recommendations made by the committee were already in place. But he acknowledged more needed to be done.

My stupid care Co ordinator tried to have me sent to this place for a year back this June... At the point I was doing well after 2 years of the darkest place you could imagine and almost succeeding in taking my life.

I fortunately managed to fight back and get discharged and the woman who came to assess me, from St Andrews, seemed as stunned as I was that anyone considered I needed it at that point. I would never have come back or survived and would have lost everything.

https://mol.im/a/7636333

I hope that the government report will spurn some actual change and not be just another scandal of the week.

Every NHS and social care worker in England will have to undergo mandatory training on autism and learning disability following the death of a teenager, the government has said.

Eighteen-year-old Oliver McGowan, who had autism, died in November 2016 after being given anti-psychotic medication against his own and his parents’ wishes by staff at Bristol’s Southmead Hospital, part of the North Bristol NHS Trust.

Oliver’s medical records showed he had an intolerance to anti-psychotic drugs and shortly after he was given the dose he developed severe brain swelling and died.

His parents Paula and Tom McGowan have been campaigning for improved training for health and care staff and ministers have now backed their calls with new pilots and £1.4m of funding.

The new training will be named after Oliver and will start next year, with the aim to improve care for people with autism and learning disabilities using case studies and ensuring all staff understand the needs of patients with learning disabilities and autism.

Paula McGowan said: “My son, Oliver, died an avoidable death contributed to by what we believe to be staff not understanding his autism and mild learning disabilities. It was obvious during his inquest that medics had no understanding of his additional needs and how to make even the most basic of reasonable adjustments. As a consequence, I launched a parliamentary petition asking for all doctors and nurses to receive mandatory training in autism and learning disability awareness.

“We have never had mandatory training like this before and I believe this is a very important first step in addressing the inequalities of health care and premature deaths in people who have autism and learning disabilities.”

The Department of Health and Social Care is hoping the new training, which will be rolled out nationwide after the pilots, will help close the health inequality gap for patients with learning disability and autism, who are four times more likely to die before the age of 75 than other members of the public.

Health secretary Matt Hancock has also committed to reviewing the care of all 2,250 people with a learning disability who are in hospital within the next 12 months.

A new independent panel, chaired by Baroness Sheila Hollins, a professor of psychiatry and learning disability, will be established to oversee the care of children who are in segregation and to try and get them discharged sooner.

The panel will include a range of experts who will monitor, challenge and advise on the progress of case reviews of those in the most restrictive settings. The panel will expect hospitals and providers to draw up clear plans towards a discharge date or an explanation for making progress.

The changes follow a damning report by the care watchdog the Care Quality Commission earlier this year that found many patient in segregation were suffering poor care.