BY JACK WELCH

THE shocking news behind the failings of an NHS Trust, particularly those with learning disabilities and poor mental health, highlights the great challenges of caring for those individuals who are most vulnerable in society.

A report into the Southern Health Foundation Trust’s ‘unexplained’ death count, standing at 1,454, must act as a wake-up call to the real crisis, in which people across all age brackets are at risk when services are breaking under a strain, which threatens the lives of those patients who are often unable to voice concerns themselves.

As a person with a lifelong condition myself, it is a tragedy that many hospitals seem to be unequipped to accommodate the needs of those people, despite the good understanding of many conditions already.

Within Dorset, the New Year brings the Clinical Commissioning Group’s proposals into care models as part of their Acute Mental Health Services Review.

With a number of concerns raised already into Dorset Healthcare Trust’s own provision, it is vital that those younger voices who use CAMHS services are particularly vocal, as questions around waiting times and identifying their personal risk have faced some strong criticism.

The learning disability Mencap also ran a campaign some years ago, ‘Death by Indifference’, which bought the stark reality of those with learning disabilities killed because of the care they received.

Perhaps it is time for a revival of that movement, when so much still needs to change.