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So, the final report from the “Transforming Care and Commissioning Steering Group”, commissioned by NHS England and chaired by Sir Stephen Bubb, has been published, with a revealingly difficult to access easy read version alongside the easy to access difficult version (available herehttps://www.acevo.org.uk/news/winterbourne-view ). How to react to it? How to evaluate it? You’ll be deeply relieved to know I won’t be going over yet again my thoughts on how the group came about and how it’s operated, and also my thoughts on the original ‘plan’ drafted before the group came into being (there’s far too much of that in my previous blogposts). In this extremely long post I want to ask some specific questions about aspects of the report and what happens next, before rounding off with some bigger questions about the prospects for really transformational change. The report itself is 46 pages long, including an executive summary and four appendices, and is worth a careful read, largely because (...

Sara Ryan in her blog today ( http://mydaftlife.wordpress.com/2014/11/18/at-least-two-rooms-without-a-view/ ) has highlighted the lack of (and somewhat misdirected) media attention concerning two young women with learning disabilities experiencing horrific conditions at the hands of ‘health’ services. Lisa lived for 9 years in solitary confinement, in a locked room at the end of a male ward in a specialist learning disability inpatient service. All interactions with her were through a slot the size of a letterbox including her food being passed to her and her hair being brushed, with a beanbag for her to sleep on ( http://www.cqc.org.uk/sites/default/files/2014%2006%2017%20Three%20Lives%20report%20FINAL.pdf ). Stephanie was admitted to a specialist learning disability unit at the age of 18, where she lived in solitary confinement in a padded room with skylight windows for almost 7 years, during which time she gained over 10 stone. Lisa eventually moved out; Stephanie died in the unit. ...