Police should investigate claims an autistic man has no human contact and is being fed through a hatch.
That’s the view of human rights campaigner Beth Morrison.
Patient A in his room at Priory Hospital Cheadle Royal
The 24-year-old man is a patient at Priory Hospital Cheadle Royal, in Greater Manchester.
Mum Nicola Cassidy, from Liverpool, says people “wouldn’t treat an animal” as they do her son.
‘Worse than prison’
She said his case is “worse than being in prison”.
He should be released from the hospital, which has held him for more than four years, she said.
The man is officially known only as Patient A to protect his privacy.
As well as autism, he also has a learning disability and Tourette’s syndrome.
Living in a converted file room
Patient A lives in a converted file room at the hospital, which monitors him by CCTV. He has five-to-one support.
When his room needs cleaning, staff move him to a separate area, such as a garden, sealed off by a high fence.
Cassidy wants her son to live in the community so he can spend more time with his family.
Law firm Irwin Mitchell is investigating the case involving the hospital, which is owned by the Priory Group.
‘Violent criminals treated better’
Morrison, who runs Positive Behaviour Support Scotland (PBSS), said “violent criminals and murderers are treated better in prisons than our loved ones with autism and learning disabilities”.
She said there “absolutely must be a criminal investigation over this”.
The latest NHS figures show that mental health hospitals held 2,085 people with autism and learning disabilities at the end of November.
The Government aims to cut this to around 1,440 by 2023/24.
Greater Manchester Police declined to comment.
Though Cassidy claims her son has “no physical contact with anyone”, the Priory Group insists he sees hospital staff and is allowed family visits.
The Priory Group also said it had successfully provided 39 community placements. However, it added that people with “highly complex behaviours” can be “difficult to place”.
Related:
- Long-term hospital segregation is rising
- Autistic patients held in bare cells
- Families wait for action on segregation
- Abuse ‘endemic across care system’
- Families fight detention ‘scandal’
- ‘Abject failure’ of hospital plan
- 100 restrained face-down in a month
- Ombudsman slams mental health care
- Still stuck in mental health hospitals
- Mental health problems go undiagnosed
- Scandal of child mental health spending
- Hospitals ‘may have caused deaths’
- MPs back ban on long-term hospitals
- Long-stay hospitals ‘must close’
- Dismay at inaction over assessment units
- Nearly 50 dead in long-stay hospitals
- Scandal of decade-long hospital stays
- ‘Abject failure’ of hospital plan
- Huge surge in hospitals using restraint
- Social workers aim to cut hospital stays
- Spotlight on hospital care
Published: 12 January 2022
