Cornwall : Disgraced Mental Health Trust Faces Legal Action

A disgraced mental health trust is facing legal action over allegations that it has mis-spent patients’ money.

Cornwall Partnership NHS Trust was condemned in an official report last year for the abuse of vulnerable people with learning disabilities in its care.

Investigators for the Healthcare Commission and the Commission for Social Care Inspection found people had been hit, pushed and dragged by carers in the “worst” institutional abuse they had found. Their report also detailed claims that patient’s money had been misused.

Truro solicitor Richard Scrase is preparing to launch legal action against the trust which could recoup around £10,000 for one disabled man. Mr Scrase claimed that the trust had wrongly charged the man for telephone and fax services which he was incapable of using. He said the test case could have implications for nearly 200 people who were cared for in community homes and possibly cost the trust up to £2 million.

Mr Scrase said: “The money is one element of this and is significant. But the other is that these are very vulnerable people placed in the care of an organisation that is expected to discharge its responsibilities properly.”

Further allegations surfaced in last night’s BBC Inside Out programme. One former worker alleged that staff had used residents’ money that they had saved from their benefits to pay for staff expenses when they went on trips and holidays. The woman, who was not named, claimed staff also used the money of a deaf resident to buy an expensive music system and CDs, which staff then borrowed.

Lezli Boswell, chief executive of the partnership trust, vowed to “fully investigate” the claims made in the programme but stressed that major improvements had been made since the abuses were uncovered.

Budock Hospital in Falmouth, the centre of many of the abuses, had been closed and demolished, while the care of more than 160 people had been transferred to the county council.

She said: “I have asked the programme’s producer to put me in touch with the individual concerned so that I can ensure the allegations they make have been fully investigated and the appropriate action taken. I have learned this week that the independent investigation by the NHS Counter Fraud Service has concluded and found no evidence of fraudulent activity. Since the publication of the report in July 2006 a significant number of improvements have and are taking place within the trust’s learning disability services.”

A spokesman for the NHS Counter Fraud Service said its inquiries had concluded and found “no specific evidence of criminal behaviour”. However, its remit is limited to cases where the NHS, not patients, has been defrauded.

A spokesman for Devon and Cornwall Police said allegations of fraud were not part of its investigation into the abuse.

No one from the Audit Commission was available for comment.