The biggest hospital abuse scandal you've probably never heard of

Muckamore Abbey Hospital, Northern Ireland, which provides treatment for adults with severe learning disabilities, became "one of the nation's biggest ever crime scenes" in 2017 when hundreds of thousands of hours of CCTV footage revealed that patients had been seriously abused, said the BBC.

Yet, eight years after the footage was discovered, no cases have come to trial, the hospital hasn't been closed and a public inquiry has yet to report its findings.

'Staggering' abuse

There were already concerns about the hospital's treatment of patients before the CCTV footage was discovered. Glynn Brown, for instance, believed that his severely disabled adult son may have been assaulted by staff but he was told there was no video evidence because the CCTV cameras, installed six months earlier, had never been switched on.

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But, in fact, the cameras had been running the entire time and had captured a "staggering" 300,000 hours of footage that revealed widespread abuse and neglect of patients by hospital staff.

Vulnerable young adults were "punched, kicked, dragged across floors, tipped off furniture" and had "balls kicked at them", said the BBC. Their possessions were "taken away" and there was "emotional abuse", including patients with severe learning disabilities being "provoked into a reaction" and then restrained and placed in isolation.

As hospital trust officials took on the mammoth task of combing through the footage, families of the patients were told they would not be allowed to see it, to prevent any prejudice of criminal investigations. But relatives were contacted with descriptions of the incidents involving their loved ones.

This is the "largest systemic abuse case uncovered in the UK", Andrew McDonnell, a clinical psychologist with experience of such investigations, told the broadcaster. The "sheer volume and scale" of it "dwarfs anything I've ever seen before".

Inquiry yet to deliver verdict

Yet the families are still waiting to see anyone be held to account. In March, the hospital trust rejected calls for senior staff members to be sacked, reported Nursing Times. Belfast Health and Social Care Trust apologised for the failings of individual staff members at Muckamore Abbey Hospital but said that accountability "doesn't necessarily mean losing your job". In a statement to the BBC this week, the trust apologised to families and said some staff have now been dismissed.

In May, seven former members of staff appeared in court charged with ill-treatment of patients. They were released on bail pending an arraignment hearing, said the Belfast Telegraph. There have been 38 arrests to date, said the BBC, but no trials or convictions.

A public inquiry, which sat from 2022 until earlier this year, is yet to deliver its final report and recommendations. Families have criticised the inquiry, saying that hospital managers were not "rigorously cross-examined" and that lawyers representing patients and their families weren't allowed to directly ask questions of the witnesses. The Muckamore Abbey Inquiry said, in a statement, that lawyers for families of patients were permitted to make an application to the chair to ask witnesses questions directly but no such applications had been received.