Review of Winterbourne View by Teresa Curtis Essay Example

Review of Winterbourne View by Teresa Curtis Essay Example Review of Winterbourne View by Teresa Curtis Essay Review of Winterbourne View by Teresa Curtis Essay A review of the Winterbourne View Panorama I watched this documentary this morning with my class on the goings on at Winterbourne View Residential Hospital for adults with Learning Disabilities. I watched as a member of staff made complaints and went to the top to report what was going on in the home and was not taking seriously and ignored and nothing done about his complaints not even an investigation and ended up having to go to the BBC Panorama team. I am ashamed at the fact that the staff member, a senior male nurse called Terry Bryan had to go to people not in the health care industry to alk about what was happening and becoming a whistle-blower in order to help the patients as much as he could. I heard as the narrator stated that there was several different staff reporting abuse and still no investigation done to check for abuse. I heard the horror in the whistle blower Terry Bryans words as he told us what he experienced. I was disgusted as I watched carers poke a females eyes and hit her bare back after she had been restrained causing her to scream in pain. I saw the carers automatically restrain the patients, even when they had done nothing wrong nd there was no need for restraint to be used. The fact they restrained them when not needed was bad, but the fact that they also used incorrect and dangerous ways of restraint shows me that they had either not been trained properly or disregarded any training they had and could end up killing the patient. In one episode of restraint that was included clearly showed a carer, leaning on the patients chest, with her other arm pushing on the neck above the carotid artery, which could cause serious damage or death. I watched clips of different carers abusing the patients, such as ne carer kicked the back of a patients leg whilst pulling their Jumper until the fell to the floor. Another carer stood on a patients hand, a third carer restrain someone using a chair and even worse another carer repeatedly punching a patients head, admittedly not hard, but continued to do so until they sais ding ding even though the patient was scared and wanting it to stop. I watched carers dump cold water on a patient and leave them outside during winter so that she was shaking, drag patients out of bed to the floor, and hit a patient repeatedly, I heard the narrator tells us that he undercover Journalist named Joe Casey was hired after a week of training with no experience caring but had extra training organised by the panorama team. On his first day I was horrified at the amount of abuse he recorded. They showed a carer verbally abusing a patient he shoved to the floor and was restraining by saying suffocate on your own fat abusing the patient both physically and mentally. I watched and listened as one member of staff had a conversation with Joe and gave him a piece of advice concerning a patient who had been restrained with the arm bove her carotid artery and then a quilt used to cover her mouth. She told him the minute she gets anywhere close to you, you Just have to do what you got to do. If youre on your own, like. If you have to smash her and you smash her, but you know, you dont let tnat Ine minute sne sta rts snoutlng, I dont let ner on ner Teet. I get ner straight down. And when he replied with Oh right, so get her straight in the floor? she replied with The minute she starts shouting. You wont calm her down. Itll get worse and somebodyll get hurt. Either a patient or yourselves. And then thats a big, big statement you have to write why somebodys got hurt. And the first thing managementll ask you, why wasnt she on the floor. Yeah I Just whack them all down. I listened as Joe said when describing what he thought that It was pretty much run by a group of bullies for the own entertainment. They showed their footage to Clinical Psychologist Andrew McDonald, an expert in the handling of patients with Challenging Behaviours. It was clear to see that he was appalled at what he was seeing and he called it Stonehenge. He told us the techniques they were using for estraint were not taught techniques and that in his opinion they were making it up as they go along. The whistle-blower, Terry Bryan had gone to the hospitals management a year before with a list of the patients he felt was in the most danger but was ignored. I watched as staff made threats to the patients scaring them into complying and distanced from their family isolating them to Just each other and the carers. I watched as one patient had his bottle stolen from him that he takes everywhere and purposely kept away from him making him a source of nter tainment for the staff and later heard from Dr Andrew McDonald how doing that could trigger a panic attack. The hospitals Job was to evaluate and treat the patients to try and get them back into the community. They were meant to assess patients psychological and psychiatric state and work out the best way to respond to the patients needs and behaviour and figure out the best way of supporting them. I was appalled to learn that the NHS was signing large checks weekly for each patient and was not being told what the money was being used for and placed their trust in them without checking up on complaints made. There should have been activities and days out planned with the money as well as entertainment for the patients to use in the hospital as well as there was more than enough money to organise a few things for the patients to enjoy. I was shocked at the system wide failures that was pointed out due to the lack of checking and communication over the complaints received. I was also shocked that no links had been made by the police, NHS commissioners and other companies that received complaints about Winterbourne View. The things the patients suffered through is nothing but institutional and ystematic abuse as they were not only abused by the carers but the system that was meant to protect and help them. The most disturbed thing in my mind about this whole thing is that the staff was experienced and was not new to the Job, such as one having 6 years of experience and clearly was showed to be abusing the patients. Overall I am disgusted at the lack of humanity shown by the staff involved and the neglect by the NHS shown. I am disgraced at the amount of abuse that happened in a 5 week period that the undercover person was there for. I believe that the NHS not nly failed to do its Job but failed in the responsibilities parents, relatives and friends gave them to protect the patient but they utterly failed and caused more damage because they simply did not follow up complaints. There is no excuse for what nappenea Decause tnere were more tnan enougn complalnts not only to tne company but to the health care watchdog and police who should have looked into the complaints more deeply as well as communicate to be able to see that there was a problem at the hospital. And the fact that there were at least 40 safeguarding alerts here nothing was done to find out about them. In my opinion after this event the system needed a complete review and overhaul and other hospitals need to be looked into to find out if they are abusing the patients and causing more damage as well as spending tax payers money for things not needed wasting it away as Winterbourne View clearly showed that they were not using the money responsibly. This should never have happened and probably would not have happened if the NHS Commissions, Police, Social Services and anyone else involved had done their Jobs right. This review was done by Teresa Curti