The Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Services, Vaughan Gething AM, has been urged to reconsider his approach over the latest Tawel Fan Report and told if he doesn’t he will have failed in his duty to the families and patients affected and in his duty to Wales.
North Wales Assembly Member Mark Isherwood criticised the Cabinet Secretary following his Statement in the Chamber yesterday on the Health and Social Care Advisory Service (HASCAS) Report into the care and treatment provided on the Tawel Fan Ward at Ysbyty Glan Clwyd.
The Tawel Fan ward in the Ablett Unit at Glan Clwyd Hospital, Denbighshire, was closed in December 2013 after an initial investigation by Donna Ockenden exposed "institutional abuse" on the ward.
Responding to the Cabinet Secretary in the Assembly Chamber, Mr Isherwood said:
“In your statement to us, you state, 'anyone who has taken the time to read the report carefully should appreciate the thoroughness of the investigation and understand how the conclusions have been reached.' We have to disagree. But, of course, we're not alone. The Chief Officer in the North Wales Community Health Council has said that dismissing the testimony of Tawel Fan families is akin to ‘not believing survivors of sexual abuse’. He insisted the evidence given by relatives of dementia patients at the Ablett unit was absolutely credible. The Older Person's Commissioner for Wales, Sarah Rochira, said ‘the headline findings of the report will be of little comfort to the families of the patients on the Tawel Fan ward, who have been clear that their relatives suffered standards of care that were quite simply unacceptable’.
“Was not your use of the word 'reassuring' in initial press reports following the publication of the report at the very best insensitive to the relatives and families, who themselves were reported as stating they found this report devastating?
“They were angry and in uproar over the abuse report. They again talked about how their loved ones were seen being dragged by the scruff of the neck, barricaded and left in their own mess. One spoke about how his mother was bullied and forced to sleep in an ant-infested bed. There was more than one occasion when she'd be in the same clothes for at least two days, lying in her own mess. He described the report as ‘a huge cover-up’, as reported in the press.
“The Health Board states that it was alerted to serious concerns regarding patient care on the Tawel Fan Mental Health Ward in the Ablett Unit at Ysbyty Glan Clwyd in December 2013 – but concerns about this Ward go back a lot further.
“In 2009, I represented a constituent who alleged the treatment received by her husband in the unit nearly killed him, that three other patients admitted around the same time as her husband had similar experiences and that she was now worried about the treatment others may receive in this unit. Her husband suffered from Alzheimer's and terminal cancer. I was also copied in on a complaint in respect of another patient at the time who had vascular dementia, which included distressing before-and-after photographs. These were shared with both the Health Board and its predecessor and your predecessor. No action appears to have been taken.
“Thankfully, in 2015, Welsh Government, the Health Board and Healthcare Inspectorate Wales all accepted the findings of Donna Ockenden's 2015 report. So, why now, when many serious allegations are peppered throughout the HASCAS report, has it come to the bizarre conclusion that care was good and that institutional abuse didn't happen?
“Why do the conclusions not stack up with the findings? The HASCAS report doesn't chime with concerns raised in other reports. Why doesn't it chime with the Healthcare Inspectorate Wales report in July 2013, which found a patient locked in a room sitting in a bucket chair, incontinent, in their own faeces and urine. It found no activities for patients. It found the garden unkempt and inaccessible. It found insufficient staffing, and much more. Internal work on ‘Dementia Care Mapping’ in October 2013 revealed patients desperately trying to engage with staff, and an elderly patient found to be smearing herself with her own faeces resulting from this lack of engagement. Page 115 of the HASCAS Report talks about ‘Dementia Care Mapping’, but page 116 says that ‘no serious concerns were raised and no poor practice observed’.
Mr Isherwood added:
“The HASCAS findings are based, quite properly, on clinical notes. You refer to the clinical notes in your Statement, but they (HASCAS) acknowledged that when they came to start their review, the clinical records they needed had not been secured. Why therefore, in breach of standard NHS practice to stop clinical notes being got at, were these notes not secured? And how, even if they weren't got at, can we have any confidence regarding their content in these circumstances, especially given the different findings of different reports I've referred to previously?
“Is it not therefore the case that our colleague, Darren Millar, is right to have written to the Public Accounts Committee asking them to examine this matter, reflecting both the inconsistent evidence and the huge concerns caused to North Wales in general, but particularly to the families of these dozens of victims, where the evidence is so strong that we have to accept that they were clearly telling the truth?
“I hope, Cabinet Secretary, you're going to change your tune on this, that you're going to listen, that you're not going to shoot the messenger, and that you're going to reconsider your approach, because, if not, you will have failed in your duty to these people, you will have failed in your duty to the patients and staff, and you will have failed in your duty to Wales. I look forward to your response.”
ENDS