She also claims that patients on high observation levels, because they were at risk of self-harm, were left to go to their rooms alone. She claims staff regularly restrained patients, ignored cries for help and were abusive. They also allege that an ungloved hand was thrust into her mouth during one restraint. More than 50 former Huntercombe patients have spoken to Sky News as part of a joint investigation with The Independent. "I think it's awful. READ MORE:Berkshire schools: Parents fined for not taking children to school. The statement added: Patients have been informed of the decision as have senior members of staff. Danielle Middleton was an inpatient at Maidenhead at the same time, between 2014 and 2016. 'Jane', who wishes to remain anonymous,went into the Maidenhead unit for a month in 2018 when she was 14 for treatment for low-level self-harming and autism. Active Care Group claimed that the high number of reports was a sign of best practice, indicating a safer culture. Our Tier 4 Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) hospitals deliver specialist treatment to young people with severe or complex mental health conditions who need intensive inpatient treatment. Police are investigating the death of a young girl at The Huntercombe Maidenhead mental health hospital in February. A spokesperson said: Taplow Manor is the largest unit of its type in the country, and the number of incidents reflects that. HuntercombeHospital Maidenheadisregisteredtoprovidethefollowingregulatedactivities; assessmentormedicaltreatmentforpersonsdetainedundertheMental HealthAct1983 diagnosticandscreeningprocedures treatmentofdisease, disorderorinjury. Some of the former patients we've gathered testimonies from were in these units as recently as February and March this year. The hospital is 60 miles from the family home, near Southampton, but due to a lack of beds in Hampshire it was the nearest option. The staff were so nice, says Julie. Some young patients were given sleep drugs not licensed for under-18s. She says it led to her making "an attempt" three or four times a day. Maidenhead, There's no need for the service to take further action. Although this is not uncommon in anorexia treatment, she says the tube was repeatedly and painfully inserted and removed against guidelines published in the British Journal of Psychiatry. 0000107816 00000 n Last January, The Huntercombe Group merged with The Active Care Group, and the Huntercombe Hospital in Maidenhead has changed its name to Taplow Manor. Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in, Exclusive: Taplow Manor, formerly owned by The Huntercombe Group, set to close after series of care concerns raised, Find your bookmarks in your Independent Premium section, under my profile. She said: "When I look at that photo now it makes me really, really angry and just so desperately sad that a child can do that to themselves and that that can be allowed to happen. A mental health hospital for young people must still make improvements in several areas, inspectors have said. Inadequate The Huntercombe Hospital Maidenhead The Huntercombe Hospital Maidenhead -Ratings and reviews Contents Contents. She was discharged after nine months but relapsed and was sent to a different hospital, aged 17, where I had lots of therapy and made a real recovery. the service is performing exceptionally well. 169 0 obj <> endobj xref The Huntercombe Group was taken over by Active Care Group (ACG) in December 2021. Jane said her stay at the unit "broke" her, adding: "It made things worse. But she says: I was never even admitted to A&E, and had to wait for them to pass through my body. The return of heroin chic is a cynical betrayal of young A problem shared by mother-of-four and GP Clare Bailey: I'm Rest easy! Those who've agreed for their names and photos to be used form a striking collection of young faces who needed help. Your genorosity, care and your skill have helped me get my life back. 0000100735 00000 n The hospital has since said it plans to reopen as an adult unit. Requires improvement She returned to Huntercombe for a nine month stay, where she repeatedly try to take her own life. If this service has not had a CQC inspection since it registered with us, our judgement may be based on our assessment of declarations and evidence supplied by the service. We recommend using one of the following browsers: Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Safari. I try to think I did help some of the patients, but I still think I was part of something really bad, and that makes me feel responsible, Steph says. This site is part of Newsquest's audited local newspaper network. She said: Up and down the country, our most vulnerable children and young people are being failed by the system. A Gannett Company. This raises questions about the culture within these settings, that the figures are so high., Have you been affected by this story? The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has rated Taplow Manor, which was formerly known as Huntercombe Hospital Maidenhead, as requires improvement following an inspection in June. That was certainly the case for Bonnie. We have a dedicated team ready to assist you with whatever you need. More than 50 former Huntercombe patients have spoken to Sky News as part of a joint investigation with The Independent. 0000003319 00000 n The regime was harsh and far behind best practice for treating eating disorders. You can call them on 0808 802 9999 in England and Wales, 0808 801 0302 in Scotland, and 0800 0246 991 in Northern Ireland, or visit their website at www.rapecrisis.org.uk. I like being here with Active Care Group. Overview; Departments and services; Facilities; Ratings and reviews; Leave a review; No reviews. Digital picture of King Charles which features thousands of individual drawings Do not sell or share my personal information. We use cookies to improve the performance of our website. I was screaming and pressing the alarm but it took for ever for help to arrive. The care I receive helps me to be better every single day. A patient who went into the Maidenhead unit in 2021, who wants to remain anonymous, said she "came in with a little bit of trauma and came out with a lot more". She stayed for more than two years. the service is performing exceptionally well. The data lays bare for the first time the horrific scale of sexual incidents reported at Taplow Manor, though concerns have previously been raised in relation to Huntercombe hospitals, which are now run by Active Care Group and were formerly managed by the Huntercombe Group. Bonnie Fuller, 16, explains how she was left with PTSD after a stay in the hospital. Sky News has now seen multiple independent reviews of patient care corroborating accounts of poor practice, and we've gathered testimonies from more than 20 former patients who were in units run by The Huntercombe Group over a 10-year period. We will publish a report when our review is complete. She says: If Id had proper care and compassion, I dont think I would have felt so helpless. Its you thats doing this. And I am like: Youre fighting against flesh.. She recalled one female staff member crying because she didn't know how to help her. Learn More 0000011119 00000 n I dont want it to happen to anyone else.. Looking at our testimonies as a whole, a pattern emerged of complaints about over-restraint and concerns of inadequate staffing. Contact us Address Huntercombe Lane South Taplow Maidenhead Berkshire SL6 0PQ Get directions (opens in Google Maps) Phone 01628 667881 Online Visit Hospital website Send email to Hospital Find another hospital What patients say There are currently no reviews for The Huntercombe Hospital Maidenhead. Huntercombe Hospital Maidenhead was placed in special measures by the CQC in February and is now rated as requiring improvement. Months later, a tragic incident resulted in the death of a young girl on the ward. inaccuracy or intrusion, then please Active Care Group has been providing complex care for over 30 years. The postcode to use for the Sat-Nav is SL6 0PQ. I don't know why they're still running.". the service isn't performing as well as it should and we have told the service how it must improve. It has been rated "good" by Ofsted and is a registered exam centre. contact the editor here. She was desperate to get her out not an easy process, since Bonnie had been sectioned. I saw a child kneeing herself in the face. 0000034103 00000 n Read more:The shocking truth of life in a children's mental health unit'Inadequate staffing' at Berkshire mental health unit 'put young people at risk''Treated worse than animals''It just felt like they'd given up on me'. I cannot live independently.". Amber Rehman, 18, has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder - contributed to by her time in a hospital in Maidenhead in Berkshire run by The Huntercombe Group. This service is regulated by the Care Quality Commission. The following year, the NHS and the Royal College of Psychiatrists set up a group to tackle the problem. 0000068194 00000 n Her daughter Mia was 17 years old when she took her own life in March 2017 at Huntercombe's Norwich unit. Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? There was this huge culture of blaming patients, and very Victorian [views], like [we were] fallen women These girls are mad. And not only that, but it must be your fault, because youre mad, so youre sexually unboundaried. Until moving to my current unit, I began to believe that the way they dealt with me and my mental illness was right and what I deserved. We are committed to providing caring, supportive, recovery-focused treatment and we achieve this by working together with our young people, their families, and other professionals. I've got a 1 ot 1 each day, and all the staff are really nice and kind. I saw children with psychosis have outbursts and staff would just say: I wish shed keep quiet. They said self-harm was attention seeking. Four years on, Bonnie describes her mental, physical and emotional trauma at the Huntercombe Hospital Maidenhead, Berkshire, one of several facilities run at the time by the Huntercombe Group. Active Care Group, which runs the hospital, confirmed it would close by the end of May, saying a decision by the NHS to stop admitting patients had rendered its service untenable. Bonnie says: I got too scared to eat. the service isn't performing as well as it should and we have told the service how it must improve. Other patients make similarly disturbing claims. But just one Huntercombe Hospital in Maidenhead was responsible for more than half of these reports to the health service. Yet the latest CQC report, published in August, gives Taplow Manor the higher grade of requires improvement. Due to patient numbers reducing, we will lose specialist staff and therefore the ability to provide an effective and safe service to these young people. Her recollections are corroborated by Steph Smith, 20, a carer from Bracknell, who describes the serious issues she witnessed at Huntercombe both as a patient, in 2017, and then as staff from December 2021 to March 2022. I'd fall asleep sometimes. 0000068937 00000 n A scandal-hit childrens mental health hospital will close months after an investigation by The Independent uncovered claims of poor care and systemic abuse. Natasha said: "When in Huntercombe - something I find very painful to think about, let alone talk about - I was heavily sedated, restrained every day and injected.". Click here to view our latest report & rating. Huntercombe Lane South, Is climate change killing Australian wine? Maidenhead, In 2018, the CQC removed registration for The Huntercombe Norwich hospital following fears over patient safety. Expert psychological support is being provided to individual patients and staff on the ward. Also speaking to Sky News, lawyer Mark McGhee, who represents several former patients in the units run by the Huntercombe Group, said he had been told of allegations of "violations of human rights and serious physical, emotional and in some cases potential sexual abuse over a period well in excess of 10 years. Huntercombe Group During unprecedented times like these, it is more important than ever that we show our appreciation to the people who continue to care for the young people in our services despite the ongoing pandemic. 8 Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium. Watcombe Hall closed in 2017 after it was placed in special measures. 0000018536 00000 n 0000107855 00000 n Maidenhead, She saidthere simply werent enough of them and they werent well trained. The provider of this service changed. Bonnie became anorexic after beingbullied and the death of her grandmother. The Fullers are far from alone in making these shocking assertions. Statistics show that 48 per cent of patients who made claims in the last quarter received psychological support after making an allegation. 0000001690 00000 n I was dragged into the feeding room and then held down. Neither Leigh House hospital nor the Elysium Brighton clinic, where Bonnie was later a patient, pushed girls to eat in this way. 0000002025 00000 n In a statement, Huntercombe Young People Ltd said: "We recognise that significant change was needed at our Maidenhead hospital and we have recently brought in a new leadership team to roll out an urgent action plan. Distress and fear, but also relief that Bonnie would receive the help she so desperately needed. This service is regulated by Ofsted. We expect Active Care Group to work quickly and extremely closely with us on operational planning and this has to be done sensitively, keeping patient safety at the heart of any decisions and actions must be implemented these plans will be communicated to patients and their families as soon as possible.. Danae says she was often injured during restraints, which "pretty much happened every day", and had her hair pulled out. Following The Independents reports, the government launched an independent rapid review, though this has been criticised for focusing only on the data held on mental health services rather than taking a more comprehensive approach. Following this inspection, we served the provider with a letter of intent under Section 31 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008, to warn them of possible urgent enforcement . Taplow Manor is due to be closed next month. They really help me and since I've been here I've made lots of new friends, and started doing new things like acting which I really enjoy. Amber was restrained to prevent her from self-harming, or to be fed through a nasal tube. Figures obtained from the NHS show that Huntercombe's Maidenhead unit, Taplow Manor, was behind 57 per cent of the 2,875 sexual incidents and assaults reported to England's child and adolescent. SL4 5UL, In is run by They started struggling to fit it, [but] would carry on anyway; sort of punching the back of my nose. Huntercombe Hospital Maidenhead, based in Huntercombe Lane South, Taplow, provides specialist child and adolescent mental health inpatient service, including psychiatric intensive care for young . I came forward about the sexual abuse I experienced by a Huntercombe staff member in the hope that future patients would be protected. During that time, we can reveal the CQC gave permission for 29 young people to be admitted. Download our brochure to learn more about the services we provide at Active Care Group. The details remain raw and it's clear what an enormous emotional toll her time at the Huntercombe unit has taken on the entire family. 0000007338 00000 n 2023 BBC. The Huntercombe Group closed down three of its children's mental health units, but two remain open - the Maidenhead unit in Berkshire where Amber and 'Sally' went, and another in Stafford. When patients tried to get help from the nurses station, they were ignored. 6 Huntercombe Hospital Maidenhead, Maidenhead, UK. Were here to talk to you about any care needs you may require. Huntercombe Hospital Maidenhead, in Berkshire, cares for children between the ages of 12 and 18. Only a few weeks later, however, Julie and husband James felt they had lost their daughter. "Our sincere condolences go out to the young person's parents and all who have been affected. A single childrens mental health hospital with just 59 beds reported more than 1,600 sexual safety incidents in four years, shocking NHS figures reveal. Go outdoors: TV presenter Gethin Jones reveals the one lesson he's learned from life. But what we will be seeing is the tip of the iceberg.. ". 0000015017 00000 n Last year The Independent revealed that police were investigating the alleged rape of a child at Taplow Manor, involving two staff members. Huntercombe (No 12) Limited. Danae Rackliff was 15 when she was admitted there in 2017 for help with an eating disorder. Amber's mother, Nikki Boughton-Smith, said: "You hand your child over thinking they're going to get the help and the care, and the minute you realise they're not getting that. and worse than ever you can't do anything about it.". She went in when she was just turning 14. 0000295425 00000 n Her family made a formal complaint to the hospital in April 2020. A young female patient also made a report to the police of an alleged rape by another patient in 2019. Bonnie refused to tell her mother what had happened. And an anonymous patient, who was in the Stafford unit as recently as March this year, told us: "On multiple occasions I would hide myself in a corner of a room and self-harm without staff noticing my arm bleeding when they checked on me. Nikki challenged the methods used to treat Amber, but says she wasn't listened to. Danae Rackliff was 15 when she was admitted to the Stafford unit in 2017 for help with an eating disorder. It found some rooms were "hot and unpleasant" and some ward spaces were too small to accommodate the number of people being cared for in them. 0000010172 00000 n Bonnie claims her bedsheets were rarely changed during her four-month stay, and blood from head-banging an alarmingly common form of selfharm within the hospital was regularly left on the walls. Provided and run by: Active Young People Limited. See new profile We are carrying out a review of quality at Huntercombe Hospital - Maidenhead. Those ads you do see are predominantly from local businesses promoting local services. She told The Independent: Lessons could and should have been learnt from the complaints and patient experiences of Huntercombe CAMHS hospitals dating from 10 years ago. All patients are encouraged to attend school during term time where education is provided to pupils from Key Stage 3 through . She blames the care she received for the deterioration in her condition, describing how she was restrained. SL6 0PQ, In Huntercombe Hospital in Maidenhead has been placed in special measures by the CQC A mental health hospital where blood stains were found on a wall has been placed in special measures, the. 0000100346 00000 n She explains how she was let down by Huntercombe Hospital in Maidenhead, Berkshire. Latest inspection: If this service has not had a CQC inspection since it registered with us, our judgement may be based on our assessment of declarations and evidence supplied by the service. We remain committed to providing the best possible care for our patients., Elli Investments, which owned the Huntercombe Group until 2017, said: We are deeply shocked and saddened to hear of these distressing patient experiences, which failed to meet appropriate standards of care, and it is important that these incidents are fully investigated., Bonnie, however, fervently believes closing the hospital is the only way to prevent other young people suffering. "It's like whatyou read about asylums and workhouses, and it was horrendous. . Ask about availability at one of our specialist facilities. There are a lot of patients who maybe caused significant harm to themselves, which could have been avoided had we had more staff.". 0000068388 00000 n 0000288732 00000 n He said he was concerned about inadequate staffing and training and claimed there were staffing issues "pretty much every day". How to look regal by the experts the royals rely on:Tinned mackerel for youthful skin, walking through a Want better sleep? Did this woman die because her genitals were cut? SL6 0PQ. Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in, Please refresh your browser to be logged in, Police investigating sexual assault at scandal-hit childrens hospital as watchdog threatens closure, Scandal-hit childrens hospital sanctioned by watchdog after systemic abuse revealed, Whistleblowers claim children seriously harmed at scandal-hit mental health hospitals, Government orders urgent review into safety of mental health patients in England, Ive been shoved, punched and spit on I believe Covid lockdowns are to blame, NHS slammed for sending children to hospital despite 1,600 sexual safety incidents, Thousands of sexual safety incidents at childrens hospitals not reported to watchdog, Scandal-hit hospital to close after investigation by The Independent. Julie says Bonnie saw the doctors in charge of the ward very seldom. Former workers claimed the alleged failings at Taplow Manor in Maidenhead, Berkshire, put young people at risk. It has been rated good by Ofsted and is a registered exam centre. 0000080790 00000 n Taplow Manor will be the third childrens hospital owned by the former Huntercombe Group to be closed following concerns over poor care. In 2020, the Care Quality Commission warned that sexual incidents are commonplace on mental health wards. Bonnies and Julies names have been changed. Kate nails sporty chic in 600 Mountain Equipment jacket, 110 jeans and 175 walking Slice of pep-heir-oni? This website and associated newspapers adhere to the Independent Press Standards Organisation's It is a 60 bed independent hospital. The service previously operated under the name Huntercombe Hospital Maidenhead, but has since changed management. For some of 2021 the CQC was so concerned about the Maidenhead unit it told the hospital it could only admit patients with written permission from the regulator. Video, The secret mine that hid the Nazis' stolen treasure, Shooting suspect was deported four times - US media, King Charles to wear golden robes for Coronation, More than 100 police hurt in French May Day protests, MasterChef Australia host Jock Zonfrillo dies, Disney faces countersuit in feud with Florida, Street piano confiscated as public 'break rules', NFL player's daughter, aged two, drowns in pool, US rock band Aerosmith announce farewell tour, Explosion derails train in Russian border region. Active Care Group took over the Huntercombe Group Hospitals in 2021. After The Independent revealed accusations of patients being heavily restrained, force-fed and facing systemic abuse, the NHS stopped sending patients to the hospital. Alice, now 18 years old,says during that time she learned new ways to self-harm. It is now rated requires improvement after the Care Quality Commission found a number of improvements. "We, as parents, were reassured by staff that this was standard practice, although we have subsequently learned that restraint should only ever be used as a last resort, not as a routine procedure. Taplow Manor hospital, in Maidenhead, was threatened with closure by the NHS safety watchdog, the Care Quality Commission, only last week if it failed to make improvements following a damning report. She blamed the care she received for the deterioration in her condition, describing how she was restrained. I started struggling more with eating. Having struggled with mental health from the age of 12 after experiencing trauma, in 2017, aged 15, Steph was admitted to Huntercombe for intensive therapy that she did not receive. She admits finding it hard to relax, and after our interview she goes for a drive with her father to clear her mind. It felt as though she had died, and there was this thing that looked like my daughter sitting across from me, but I had no relationship with her. 0000011256 00000 n She said: "Sometimes when they were trying to get me in holds, they would swing me round really hard and I would fall into the wall so I would get bruised knuckles. Inspectors found dried bloodstains on a wallin one ward, and were told patients were routinely self-harming by banging their heads against walls.