15 years since Winterbourne View: The CBF's statement

Please be aware that some of the content of this statement may be upsetting. If you are a family carer and have been affected by any of the issues raised in this statement, please contact the CBF’s Family Support Service – further details and resources can be found at the bottom of this statement. 

31st May 2026 marks 15 years since the Panorama documentary Undercover Care: The Abuse Exposed revealed the abuse of people with learning disabilities at Winterbourne View Hospital and shone a light on the wider practice of detaining people with learning disabilities and autistic people in hospitals.  

The impact on individuals who were living in Winterbourne View was devastating. The family of Ben, who was at Winterbourne View, said: 

The damage done to Ben is significant. He has PTSD and spends his life on high alert, always wondering who might be next to harm his body or mind. It is a fallout that he, and we, live with every day. 

The Transforming Care programme, set up in response, aimed to make sure that all people with learning disabilities and autistic people could get the right support in their communities. But 15 years on, too little change has happened. 

There are still over 2000 people with learning disabilities and autistic people in hospital. 200 are children. Since data first started being reported in 2015, the number of autistic people without a learning disability in hospital has increased by nearly 180%. While the total number of people with learning disabilities in hospital has reduced, lengths of stay remain extremely high; 50% of people with a learning disability (who are not autistic) currently in mental health inpatient units have spent more than 5 years in hospital. 

Over the past 15 years, we have seen multiple targets missed. By March 2024, the number of people with learning disabilities and autistic people in hospital should have been halved – but based on the current rate of change, this target won’t be reached until July 2035. There are now no national targets, but each ICB is charged with reducing the number of people with a learning disability and the number of autistic people in hospital by 10% each year. 

Further cases of abuse and poor practice have been highlighted: in hospitals, like Whorlton Hall, Cawston Park and St Andrews; in children’s residential settings, like the three operated by the Hesley Group in Doncaster; and in care homes, where contact orders continue to be inappropriately used to prevent contact between people with learning disabilities and their families when concerns are raised about support. Closed cultures, people being moved far from home and from their families and friends, and insufficient safeguards mean that children, young people, and adults with learning disabilities have been repeatedly failed. The same issues are highlighted each time. 

For people with learning disabilities, autistic people, and their families, the repeated promises of change have not been matched by sufficient action. Last year, the Government passed the Mental Health Act 2025, which included provisions to change the law so that people with learning disabilities and autistic people who don’t have mental health conditions would no longer be detained in hospitals. But these provisions have not been switched on, and won’t be until there is “strong community support” in place. In Parliament, Minister for Social Care Stephen Kinnock committed to working with people with lived experience – people with learning disabilities, autistic people, and their families – on a roadmap, so that this community support is put in place and these changes can be made. Half a year on, we are still waiting for this. 

Despite these national failures, some of the changes that local areas have put in place over the past 15 years have started to have an impact. Where there is strong community provision with skilled support, preventative approaches, partnership working with families and local crisis support, numbers of admissions have dropped and people are supported to have good lives. But the halving of ICB budgets risks losing these hard-won gains as local areas battle to retain skilled staff and in some areas we see admissions increasing rather than decreasing.  

Jacqui Shurlock, CEO of The Challenging Behaviour Foundation, said: 

15 years ago, Panorama increased public awareness of the fact that people with learning disabilities and autistic people were being inappropriately detained under the Mental Health Act. It also showed the horrific abuse that people were subject to in Winterbourne View. 

Today over 2000 people are still inappropriately detained. The length of stay in hospital for people with learning disabilities is often 5 years or more and some people have been inappropriately detained for over ten years. Over the past 15 years the Government set four different targets for the number of people to be moved back into the community. All four of these targets were missed.  

The lack of change cannot be because the issues are not understood. Many reports over the years have set out the actions required. Serious Case Reviews have made multiple recommendations to protect people with learning disabilities and autistic people, but these have not been implemented. Each missed target and broken promise has impacted every individual inappropriately detained; denying them their freedom, time with their loved ones, and their basic human rights. 

The Transforming Care Board was set up to ensure Ministerial oversight enabling people with lived experience a voice in formal governance processes (however limited). Its successor, the Building the Right Support Delivery Board, has been disbanded by the current administration and there is currently no arrangement in place to ensure the government must listen to people with learning disabilities, autistic people, and family carers. The Government must prioritise hearing from people with lived experience to develop the “roadmap for community support” promised by Minister Kinnock. Without skilled support in the community, dedicated to upholding human rights and ensuring good lives, nothing substantial will change. 

Five years ago, family carers whose relatives experienced inappropriate detention wrote a report called Tea, Smiles and Empty Promises. Their urgent call to action then is even more vital now: “At the core of this are our loved ones – who have experienced a lifetime of stigma, and the worst side of ‘care’. For our family members, and all others whose lives have been affected, destroyed by or lost to the system – the time is now.”

Notes 

• For more information about the Transforming Care programme and its successor, Building the Right Support, see our webpage here:  

Transforming Care – History and Future 

• The data in this statement comes from the NHS Digital Assuring Transformation dataset – see our webpage here for more information, including infographics:  

Transforming Care Data 

• Following the 10-year anniversary of Winterbourne View, families whose relatives had been at Winterbourne View published the Tea, Smiles and Empty Promises report, sharing their families’ experiences and what actions need to be taken 

Tea, Smiles and Empty Promises 

Support from the CBF  

Resources on our website  

The CBF has information available for anyone who has concerns about poor support or abuse which can be found here:  

When things go wrong  

Supporting organisations  

Family Support Service  

If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this report, you can call the Family Support Service on 0300 666 0126  

Or email us at support@thecbf.org.uk  

We are open at the following times:  Monday – Thursday: 9am – 5pm | Friday: 9am – 3pm  

We can provide information and support about the needs of your relative with a severe learning disability whose behaviour may be described as challenging. We can also help you navigate the complex health, education and social care systems.

Please note we are a small support service so you may not be able to get support straight away. We will support families with urgent concerns as a priority.  

Professionals are also welcome to contact the CBF.