Why DID it take so long for watchdogs to step in?

WATCHDOGS face urgent questions about how they missed the horrific abuse at Atlas care homes.

Inspectors from the CQC raised no concerns about residents being locked up when they visited one of the homes in April 2011. It was only after a distraught call from a resident that the home was inspected again six months later and a punishment room was discovered.

The CQC then visited Atlas homes across the country and reported back that residents with learning disabilities were being locked up, made to work for food and abused in other ways. The criminal case only focused on abuse at two of the homes. But CQC reports analysed by the Mail outline the awful abuse suffered at the firm’s homes across the country.

Last night, the CQC admitted it ‘should have responded more quickly to the concerns raised’. Andrea Sutcliffe, chief inspector of adult social care at the CQC, added: ‘Since then we have overhauled our regulatory approach; improved the monitoring of services and the way we respond to safeguarding concerns; introduced a new and more thorough inspection process; increased the numbers of people with learning disabilities involved in our inspections; and strengthened our enforcement processes.’

She said the trials were ‘a chilling reminder that we must all remain vigilant to support and protect the vulnerable’.

Excerpts from CQC reports on Atlas homes in 2011 and 2012 make disturbing reading. After visiting Veilstone in Bideford, Devon, a home for up to nine residents with learning disabilities, CQC staff found that the residents were being locked in a tiny room – but

‘Staff listened to phone calls’

this was missed during an earlier inspection. A CQC report stated: ‘We had not seen this room during our visit. The only item of furniture was an armchair and the only fitting was a surveillance camera. From inside, there was no way of knowing whether this was on or off.

‘The flooring was lino or laminate, the room was cold and there was no radiator. The window was locked. There was no curtain.’

The report on Gatooma in Holsworthy, Devon, a care home for up to five with learning disabilities, told how another ‘bare’ room used to lock up residents was found.

The inspectors found residents did housework, cooking and shopping. Their money was used to buy duvets for the home. ‘A telephone call to a relative had been listened to by staff and the conversation documented,’ the inspectors wrote.

At Santosa, a home for up to five people, also in Holsworthy, staff could control the temperature of a resident’s showers through a control panel in their office. Residents at the understaffed home were made to do shopping, meal preparation, laundry and ironing in return for bananas and biscuits.

At the Santa Maria home in Wokingham, Berkshire, vulnerable residents were locked in their rooms and denied drinks – with one locked away 1,329 times in five months.

At the Teignmead home for up to five people in Bishopsteignton, Devon, residents were violently restrained for asking for peanut butter and refusing to wear slippers. Inspectors found their calls home were recorded by staff.

At Chacedene, Reading, a home for up to three people with learning disabilities, residents were shut in their rooms and, if they tried to leave, a bell would ring to alert staff.