Joint investigation into the provision of services for people with learning disabilities at Cornwall Partnership NHS Trust

© Pavilion Journals (Brighton) Limited The Journal of Adult Protection Volume 8 Issue 3 • November 2006 This 79 page report is ahistorical insofar as it omits to acknowledge and integrate the wealth of information arising from other investigations and inquiries. Further, it offers readers no real sense of the extent or scale of the abuse experienced by people residing in the Cornwall Partnership NHS Trust accommodation and in housing supported by Trust personnel. The intensity and duration of incidents are referred to in only the most general terms. Similarly, the chronology of abuse is hinted at in the report but the exact sequence is difficult to discern. Nor do the investigation’s terms of reference account for the commissioning of a parallel review by the British Institute for Learning Disabilities. Box 1 glimpses the known constellation of abuses experienced by adults to whom the Cornwall Partnership NHS Trust had a duty of care. It includes individual acts of cruelty, random violence and inattention to safe grouping. This dismal account of inhumanity speaks of system-wide failures that fell woefully short on vital fronts and overarching structural lethargy. As a result, the report highlights the emptiness of the Trust’s authority and legitimacy and exposes the obstacles and resistance facing people with learning disabilities and their family care givers: the Trust’s three Assessment and Treatment centres offered neither assessment nor treatment. Similarly, the 45 supported living services bore few of the characteristics normally associated with supported living. Their residential services were the wayward products of an obsolete yet thriving ‘model’ of service provision; the Trust’s learning disability services were the destination for poorly Joint investigation into the provision of services for people with learning disabilities at Cornwall Partnership NHS Trust Margaret Flynn Sheffield Hallam University Viewpoint