A recent report released by the UK’s health and social care regulator, the Care Quality Commission (CQC), revealed that staff at Cygnet Joyce Parker Hospital in Coventry abused children by dragging them during restraint incidents.
There was no risk involved, according to the report, and the children offered no threat to the staff that manhandled them, nor to the 12 additional staff standing by doing nothing. In other words, there was no justification whatsoever for dragging or restraining the children in the first place.
“People, especially those at such a frightening, vulnerable time in their life, should be able to expect safe care and treatment.”
The report also quoted one child who said that staff “sometimes bent their wrist,” and another who said staff hurt them by “twisting their knee,” with four of seven children spoken to during the investigation saying they “did not feel safe” at Cygnet Joyce Parker Hospital. Based on a review of CCTV footage, the investigators concluded, “There was no evidence of staff attempting de-escalation prior to restraining the children and young people. In one incident, staff escalated the situation by refusing the young person access to their bedroom.”
A Cygnet spokesperson expressed no remorse for the institution’s misbehavior, instead complaining that the CQC took over six months to publish its report. “We continue to strongly refute any allegations of abuse,” the spokesperson said.
Circle that word “continue,” as Cygnet has had a continuing situation of atrocity and denial over its long and well-documented history of vicious abuse across its 150 institutions.
For example, 2019 was quite the busy year for the “mental health” monolith. A staff member at Cygnet Newbus Grange was convicted for what the judge described as “sadistic” bullying of a patient. During that same 12-month period, the CQC condemned four facilities that Cygnet had acquired, citing high levels of restraint and unexplained injuries among patients.
In May of that same year, BBC undercover footage revealed widespread abuse as the normal op at Whorlton Hall, a Cygnet facility in County Durham. The awful treatment of disabled patients included name-calling, obscenities, fearmongering and intimidation. Cameras caught staff needlessly physically restraining helpless individuals and, when not actually perpetrating violence, plotting how to cause pain by undetectable means.
This orgy of cruelty at a facility advertising itself as a place of succor and balm prompted a criminal investigation, the suspension of 16 staff, the relocation of patients to other units and the shutting down of the facility.
And the beat goes on. In 2020, reports of abuse surfaced at Cygnet Yew Trees. The same tune: mistreatment and harm of patients plus the bonus of witnesses choosing not to report their fellow staff. This hospital, too, was shut down, and an investigation by law enforcement and the CQC was launched.
“Providers will continue to operate this model because it’s good business, unless there is some bold intervention.”
Then, in 2023, Cygnet pleaded guilty and was hit with a fine of nearly $2 million after the suicide of a young woman while at Cygnet Hospital Ealing. The staff knew she was at risk, knew she had already attempted suicide, yet did nothing to mitigate the danger and failed to even provide adequate supervision. The resultant fine is the largest ever assessed on a psychiatric institution following a CQC prosecution. “People, especially those at such a frightening, vulnerable time in their life, should be able to expect safe care and treatment, so it’s unacceptable that this young woman’s safety wasn’t well managed by Cygnet Hospital Ealing when she needed them the most,” said Jane Ray, CQC deputy director of operations in London.
You might think Cygnet would have learned its lesson from that disaster, but no. It kowtows to an even bigger fish across the pond, its owner, Universal Health Services, Inc. (UHS), the largest institutional psychiatric provider in America, operating over 300 facilities.
The UHS résumé of blood is even more impressive than that of its apt pupil, Cygnet. In July 2020, UHS settled for $122 million for a multitude of sins, including admitting patients who didn’t need inpatient care, billing for nonexistent services, overcharging for extended stays, providing illegal kickbacks, submitting bogus claims to federal healthcare programs and, overall, providing subpar—even for psychiatry—care, staffing and treatment.
One UHS facility, Alabama’s Laurel Oaks Behavioral Health Center, has a gory history of allegations of staff assaults on patients, including a 2011 case where a staff member was convicted of sexually assaulting a teenager.
UHS, moreover, was the subject of a two-year Senate Finance Committee investigation released in June 2024. The title of the report says it all: “Warehouses of Neglect: How Taxpayers Are Funding Systemic Abuse in Youth Residential Treatment Facilities.”
According to the report, “The harms, abuses and indignities children in [Residential Treatment Facilities] have experienced and continue to experience today occur inevitably and by design: They are the direct causal result of a business model that has incentive to treat children as payouts and provide less than adequate safety and behavioral health treatment in order to maximize operating and profit margin.” Further, “providers will continue to operate this model because it’s good business, unless there is some bold intervention.”
UK Health Secretary Wes Streeting, on hearing of the recent child abuse at Cygnet Joyce Parker Hospital, said it was “truly shocking.” We agree.
But had Secretary Streeting even glanced at Cygnet and UHS’ piles of bloodstained records, he might have added: “What else would you expect?”
