Wiltshire's Conservatives are ignoring the care home abuse scandal

Cllr Chris Caswill (Chippenham Monkton ward) has called for an overhaul of the standards of residential care for Wiltshire residents.

At the July 12th Council meeting, Chris was given an assurance by the Wiltshire Council Cabinet member for adult social care, Cllr John Thomson, that all was well at Rose Villa, the Castlebeck residential home in Bristol. Several Wiltshire residents live there.

Castlebeck are the company which ran the notorious Winterbourne Viewhome which was the subject of a Panorama documentary. Within hours of Cllr Thomson's assurance it was revealed by the BBC that staff at Rose Villa had been suspended and within a couple of weeks the Care Quality Commission identified Rose Villa as one of the four Castlebeck residential homes about which they had 'serious concerns'. Rose Villa was judged inadequate on five 'essential standards'.

Cllr Caswill has now written to Cllr Thomson to ask how he, and NHS Wiltshire, could give assurances about the care being given to Wiltshire residents in the morning, which were already in doubt by the same evening, and then completely rubbished within a couple of weeks. "Public trust in the support being given to our most vulnerable adults has been seriously undermined by this disturbing chain of events. Either Cllr Thomson knew about these problems and was concealing them from the Council and the public, or he didn't know and the Council's protection of its vulnerable citizens is not up to the job - and what a vital job it is too. "

Chris has called for a root and branch review of the Council's monitoring of adult social care provision, and suspension of the current proposals for re-tendering of nursing home provision for vulnerable adults. "There are big questions to answer about Wiltshire Council's much hyped investment in adult social care. Wiltshire citizens at Winterbourne view and Rose Villa have been put at risk. We need to be sure it can't happen elsewhere and we cannot be unless Cllr Thomson is ready to learn the lessons. Whatever we cut it can't be our duty to the most vulnerable."