North Wales MS Mark Isherwood has today called on the Labour Welsh Government to apologise to the families of all the patients who suffered institutional abuse on Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board’s Hergest Mental Health Unit and Tawel Fan Dementia Ward, highlighting the First Minister’s dismissive response to them.
In this afternoon’s meeting of the Welsh Parliament, Mr Isherwood questioned the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care over the institutional abuse on Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board’s Hergest Mental Health Unit and Tawel Fan Dementia Ward, which was exposed in successive reports, and asked why the Welsh Government has not apologised to the families of the victims.
He said:
“The Tawel Fan families state that in October 2018, then Health Secretary, now First Minister, Vaughan Gething told them that what they had seen was not institutional abuse and that, when they questioned him, he walked out.
“Speaking here in November 2018, Vaughan Gething said he was content that the plans the Health Board had put in place to implement report recommendations were “comprehensive and robust”.
“A new Royal College of Physiatrists Report looking at recommendations in four previous reports has now found that fewer than half of these had been fully implemented.
“Further, the Nursing and Midwifery Council has now imposed a striking-off order on a Psychiatric Staff Nurse whose abusive conduct caused harm to vulnerable patients and witnesses on Tawel Fan Ward.
“What Welsh Government accountability and apology to the families will there now be, where this has exposed the same culture of cover-up, victim-blaming and whistleblower-bullying seen in the Post Office and Infected Blood Scandals?”
Responding, the Minister for Mental Health said:
“As part of the Special Measures intervention, Welsh Government commissioned the Royal College of Psychiatrists to undertake a review to assess the extent to which recommendations from the previous mental health reviews have been completed. The report has been shared with families and was discussed at the board meeting last Thursday, actually, on 30 May. It does indicate that progress against a number of the recommendations has not been sustained. This is very disappointing, and we will be working closely with the health board to ensure that they take and embed the appropriate actions.”