Housing failure forced disabled children to wash in garden

Published by Hannah Wooderson for 24dash.com in Housing and also in Local Government

A mother was forced to hose down her disabled children in her garden to keep them clean because a council failed to provide appropriate housing, according to a report.

Bury Metropolitan Council should apologise to the woman, referred to as Mrs M, for its "institutionalised indifference" towards her, the local Ombudsman found.

Two of Mrs M's five children were born with a rare, genetic muscle-wasting condition, and have no mobility, are doubly incontinent, and need 24-hour care.

The younger of the two is also blind and has severe learning disabilities.

They spent many years in "unsuitable accommodation" due to "failures" by the council and were left in "an increasingly desperate situation", the report said.

Mrs M had to strip-wash them in a downstairs toilet, or risk serious injury by getting them upstairs to a "small and inadequately-equipped bathroom," said Anne Seex, author of the report.

She suffered from stress, diabetes, arthritis, and constant muscle pain due to lifting and carrying the boys.

She was eventually forced to bathe them in her garden, "which must have been degrading for the boys, and heartbreaking for their mother," Ms Seex concluded.

The council knew from 1998 that the family would need a specially-adapted home.

In 2002 they were moved to a four-bedroom house but planning permission for an extension was refused.

It was not until August 2006 that they were moved to a suitable house.

During the eight-year wait, carers were banned from helping Mrs M get her children to the bathroom, Ms Seex said.

The report said "desperate representations" were made on the family's behalf by a care agency manager and a trainee social worker.

But the council "refused" to provide interim adaptations other than a stair climber and a hoist in the dining room.

The older child "could end up soiled to his neck by faeces" and "was petrified of using the stair climber because he had fallen from it three times," she found.

Bury Metropolitan Council was told to pay the mother and her two disabled children £36,000 in compensation and to set up a £5,000 fund for the other three children.

"The underlying cause was ineffective management that can fairly be described as 'institutionalised indifference' - not only to the boys' needs and their mother's plight, but to the council's duties and responsibilities," she said.

A spokesman for the council admitted its treatment of the family was "unacceptable".

He said: "It is clear that we have let this family down over an extended period and that we should have done much more to help.

"Since this case came to light we have reviewed procedures and improved communications and co-ordination within our structures to allow front-line staff to raise issues of concern with the senior managers more easily.

"More help should have been given to the family, and we regret this. We would like to pass on our sincere apologies to the family and we will learn from the findings of this report."