New call for scandal-ward inquiry
MORE than 40 patients were harmed as a result of poor care on Ysbyty Glan Clwyd’s Tawel Fan Ward, a report has revealed – prompting calls for a public inquiry.
According to the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board’s annual “Putting Things Right” report, 42 out of a total 105 cases which were subject to individual patient reports were deemed “determined harm caused”, some 40% of the total.
Tawel Fan was one of four wards at
the Ablett psychiatric unit at Glan Clwyd Hospital, and was closed in 2013 after allegations of abuse and neglect towards patients came to light.
Health expert Donna Ockenden, who investigated the concerns following the closure of Tawel Fan concluded that the care of vulnerable patients on the ward amounted to “institutional abuse” after considering concerns that patients were kept like “animals” and left in their own urine.
However, a further investigation by HASCAS (the Health and Social Care Advisory Service), an organisation whose former trustees have been linked to the Labour Party and Welsh Government, concluded that there was no evidence of “institutional abuse or neglect” and that levels of care and treatment on the ward were of a “good overall general standard”.
Now Clwyd West Assembly Member Darren Millar has called the £1.4m HASCAS study into failings of dementia patients at Tawel Fan a “whitewash”. It comes as North Wales Community Health Council (NWCHC) chief officer Geoff RyallHarvey sent a letter to Welsh Health Minister Vaughan Gething telling him families are now demanding a public inquiry after the revelations.
Mr Millar said: “These figures will reinforce the view that the HASCAS report into the care of vulnerable patients on Tawel Fan was a complete whitewash. Many of the former patients on Tawel Fan had no relatives to complain on their behalf so the actual number of patients who were harmed on the ward is likely to have been even higher than the 42 disclosed by the Health Board.
A Welsh Government spokesman said: “The Health Minister has received a letter from the North Wales CHC Chief Executive and will respond in due course.”