Health Minister's statement to the Health Committee 18 January 2012 on alleged abuse at Lissue House and Forster Green Hospitals
Madam Chair, I am grateful for the opportunity to provide further information to Members of the Committee on the allegations of abuse at Lissue and Forster Green Hospitals, and the ongoing investigation into those allegations.
~ Wednesday, 18 January 2012
Members will recall that I briefed the Committee on 26 October and I subsequently made a statement to the Assembly on 7 November about the allegations of abuse and the investigations that ensued and which were ongoing. I do not propose to take up Members’ time today rehearsing what is already on public record.
The Committee will also have received my briefing paper which, I hope, answered the specific questions that you raised. I would therefore like to take the next few minutes to provide comment on the context in which the alleged abuse took place and how it is being investigated.
First, however, I would like to put on record that there has been absolutely no attempt to cover up these matters or hide them from the public – or from the Police. All agencies involved in investigating the allegations of abuse, including the Police, did so in partnership, and with a determination to get to the bottom of the allegations and follow due process.
As I said in my Statement in November, these matters have been under investigation since 2005 following a complaint of abuse in Muckamore. That complaint was investigated fully and robustly, involving the Police from the outset. It involved professionally-monitored interviews with patients and the scrutiny of almost 300 files of patients who had been in Muckamore Abbey.
It was the investigation of alleged abuse at Muckamore, which was largely the abuse of patients by other patients, that led the Department to undertake a further exercise to see if there was any evidence of abuse in other mental health and learning disability hospitals. That is why the retrospective sampling exercise was instigated. This was an example of staff taking an extremely proactive approach rather than just being content with investigating individual complaints.
These have been lengthy and complex investigations because, as you will appreciate, we are dealing with people who were then children and adults with a learning disability or mental health problem. In many instances we are talking about individuals who are actively mentally ill, some with communication difficulties and some with intellectual impairment. It is often difficult to establish clear facts from these patients, especially where the events occurred 20 or 30 years ago.
As you are aware, the Public Prosecution Service announced in April last year that there would be no prosecutions arising from the Muckamore investigations.
Having reviewed the Stinson and Jacobs reports, the Police also confirmed after investigation that, unless further evidence came to light, they would be taking no further action on the basis of these reports.
Whenever a child makes an allegation of abuse they must be listened to and the allegation must be fully investigated. However, while it is important to uphold the rights of the child, we are also obliged to protect the rights of others by ensuring that due process is followed in any disciplinary or criminal proceedings.
That said, let me assure you that any new information that is brought forward, whether from staff, individuals who were former patients, or from any other sources, will be thoroughly investigated. We have long established protocols with the Police for this purpose and these are in operation today.
It is clear from all of the reports, including from the retrospective sampling exercise, that the régime across all of the mental health and learning disability hospitals, in the 1970s, 80s and even in the 1990s, was by our standards today often harsh. Lissue House and Forster Green Hospital were certainly no exceptions.
In this regard they were no different from mental health and learning disability hospitals elsewhere in the British Isles at the time and probably further afield. Indeed it could be said that many settings where children were cared for, including schools, during these decades could also be considered to be harsh and punitive by today’s standards. Therefore it would be wrong to judge them by our standards today. However, that is not to exonerate them in any sense, or to belittle the negative experiences that children endured, or the lasting impact this had on many of their lives, even to the present day.
That is why the wider retrospective sampling exercise carried out by the Trusts has been ongoing, and where there has been any indication of abuse this material has been shared with Police. I would like to make it clear to Members that this preceded recent media coverage and has not been a response to it.
But at this point, it is worth stating for the record that, on the basis of the information gathered to date, neither social services or the Police have been able to conclusively verify any instance of abuse to the standard required for either disciplinary or criminal proceedings.
In summary, I want to assure Members again that I am satisfied that any allegations of abuse which have been uncovered by any of these exercises were taken seriously, and, where there was the possibility of abuse having taken place in other settings, patient files were examined to see if it had taken place.
It is important that we understand how children and young people were treated in the past. That is why I have given my full support to the establishment of a Historical Institutional Child Abuse Inquiry by the Executive. It is particularly important that, if children and young people were victims of abuse, these matters are fully investigated. This is what any victim is owed. It is also essential to ensure that we manage potential risks to children and young people today. And that has to be my main focus.
That is why over the past five years the RQIA, at the direction of my Department has, on two separate occasions, independently reviewed current systems and processes to safeguard children and vulnerable adults, to ensure that every possible effort has been made to prevent abuse occurring. This provides independent assurance that our systems today are robust, and that the safety and dignity of children and vulnerable adults is paramount.
As I have said, the Department, the HSC Board, HSC Trusts and other relevant HSC bodies will co-operate fully with the Historical Abuse Inquiry being set up by OFMDFM. Officials will be liaising closely to avoid duplication between their work and ours. I will take this opportunity now to encourage any individual who has been abused to raise concerns or complaints to the Inquiry, to the Department, the HSC or the Police as appropriate.
The Committee is aware that OFMDFM had put together a preliminary list of 23 institutions which might be addressed by the Inquiry team. This list was drawn up before the terms of reference for the OFMDFM Inquiry were finalised and was simply an early attempt to scope the extent of the Inquiry. It was never intended to be a definitive list. These were institutions which had been mentioned by victims and survivors of institutional abuse at public meetings arranged by OFMDFM. As no one at those meetings had mentioned either Lissue or Forster Green Hospitals, they were not included in that preliminary OFMDFM list.
It is a misconception for anyone to believe that the appearance of a named institution on a list will mean that institution will be included in the scope of the Inquiry. Or that the absence of a named institution means that they will not be included in the scope of the Inquiry.
I think it is extremely regrettable that this issue came to my attention, and to the public’s attention, in the way that it did. It is equally regrettable that information has been presented in such a way as to denigrate the work of HSC staff who were actually working hard to uncover and pursue incidents of abuse with the police.
Recently there has been a lot of talk about ‘hounding’ the whistleblower. Whistleblowing is where an individual discloses, in the public interest, information which has been, or might be, covered up, and there are clear guidelines, procedures and protection for those who are concerned that this might be the case. I do not believe this story is about whistleblowing, as I am not aware of any individuals seeking to raise the issue within an HSC organisation or regulator and being ignored. It is actually a story about officials making every effort to uncover the truth about allegations of abuse.
Confidential information obtained as part of those investigations, relating to staff and patients, appears to have been removed from HSC files. It is for that reason the HSC Board has commissioned investigators through the Cabinet Office to investigate the unauthorised removal of documents.
This confidential information was given to the media and used by them. Members must be aware that in some cases this was information about individuals against whom no allegations have ever been made. These former members of staff who worked in Lissue and Forster Green Hospitals, without blemish, today feel sullied by the inaccurate implications drawn from that material in order to create headlines.
I believe that leaks of confidential and personal information are contrary to the rights of individuals and prejudicial to the conduct of good government in general. I will support the Board in taking whatever action it feels necessary against any staff found to be in breach of their duty to their clients, their colleagues and their employer. I will not, however, support any action against individuals who genuinely bring a matter of public concern to the attention of appropriate bodies.
Thank you. I am happy to take questions.
Connect with US
