BBC Panorama abuse care home "should be shut down".
AAUK Call for an urgent Review and ask you to write to your MP today
(please mention in your letter/email to your MP that you back and endorse AAUK'S campaign to urgently review this care home and for it to be shut down!)
AAUK was the first Autism group to launch this campign soon after the programe was aired
Castlebeck was founded in 1987 and offers specialist healthcare and rehabilitation to vulnerable people, including men and women with autism, learning disabilities, behavioural and mental health problems.It employs 2,100 people, providing care for 580 service users at 56 facilities nationwide.
In another incident Wayne restrained Simone, an 18-year-old who suffers from a genetic abnormality, by pinning her down under his chair for half an hour. Another member of staff holds her in a headlock, despite the fact she shows no signs of resistance.After the incident Wayne tells the undercover reporter: "The only things you have to watch out for if you do do this is make sure you don't have her pinched underneath the chair. I pinched her skin and sat on it and left a bit of a mark."The footage also shows Simone being subjected to two cold showers in a single day with staff pouring mouthwash and shampoo over her she screams, saying: "It's cold mum".That afternoon, with temperatures just above freezing, Wayne is filmed taking Simone into the garden and pouring a jug of cold water over her head. He only relents and takes her inside after she lies listlessly on the ground, convulsing with cold.When Simone is unable to sleep that night staff repeatedly pour cold water over her in the corridor, before holding a cold fan to her face.The day ends with staff dragging her into her room and forcing her to take a paracetamol while Graham, another member of staff, plays the role of German commandant shouting: "Nein, nein, nein". Despite the serious nature of the abuse Kelvin, a senior nurse, refuses to intervene.Simon, a 37-year-old with a mental age of four, is also singled out for abuse by staff. In one "boxing" game a member of staff repeatedly hits him in the face until he says "ding ding".Professor Jim Mansell, the author of the government's policy on disability care, said: "The staff don't think that these are human beings just like them otherwise they wouldn't be able to do what they're doing. This is the worst kind of institutional care, it's the kind of thing that was prevalent in the 60s."Terry Bryan, the whistle-blower who previously worked as a senior nurse at the home, said: "These are all people who have got families. Nobody gets to see what goes on in there. They'd be horrified if they knew."
