Tag: Care Quality Commission

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When deaths ought not to be expected: the interdependency of couples & the inadequacies of health services

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

This is an account of how, through multiple failures, misses, barren communications, and thoughtless expedience, one family’s parents seem to have died sooner than they should. The NHS was already struggling due to huge changes instituted by a government that I clearly remember promising us it would not make. The NHS, they said, has been through enough change and needs to settle. I don’t like to think what they really meant by change if this is consolidation. Then, and blame cannot be attributed to these immediate changes but perhaps to the impact of the constant tide of them, came the scandals … Continue reading When deaths ought not to be expected: the interdependency of couples & the inadequacies of health services

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learning disability, writers, writing2 Comments

Winterbourne abuse scandal

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

Writing is writing, right? Someone in ‘Good Will Hunting’ said that, if you can do it, you should, on behalf of all those who can’t. Well this link to my other blog, my other life, is my writerly way of speaking for those who can’t. Others have done the same. Journalists have made erudite comment. The BBC gave us the material. But we all knew it was happening, somewhere in our souls, our collective psyche. We knew that we could not always trust humans to act with humanity, or decency, or even just plain neglectfully. We knew that some would see an opportunity for … Continue reading Winterbourne abuse scandal

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disability2 Comments

Winterbourne’s Silent Majority

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

In 1981, I went on placement as a clinical trainee to a large mental handicap hospital in Surrey. I had never encountered people with learning disabilities before, and I was shocked to the core. But I was a qualified general nurse, and I was used to clearing up the messes bodies make when they’re ill or distressed. I was also used to pulling curtains around people on bedpans, to chasing doctors out of the women’s wards while personal care was being delivered, and to helping people to eat when they had forgotten how. I saw how morale was raised by giving patients a wash and set before visiting. … Continue reading Winterbourne’s Silent Majority

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