THE mum of a former resident at a hospital that cares for people with autism has vented her anger following the findings of its latest inspection.

Sara McBride's son stayed at Breightmet Centre for Autism last year during a period when the healthcare regulator, the Care Quality Commission (CQC), took urgent action against it after concerns over patient safety.

Her son, who was 20 at the time, has severe autism, challenging behaviour and learning difficulties, and had been a patient at the Milnthorpe Road hospital from January 14, 2019 for just under a year.

In June last year, NHS England asked Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust to take over the running of the hospital from ASC Healthcare.

This followed an unannounced inspection by the CQC when the hospital was found to be “inadequate” in all areas according to a damning report.

Inspectors slammed the hospital on its safety and general state, noting that patients’ accommodation was “dirty and poorly maintained”.

And on October 25, a protest by relatives of former patients was held outside the premises, which was organised by Joanne Murphy, whose 22-year-old son was a patient at the centre between 2016 and 2017.

The following month a tribunal ruled that ASC Healthcare should take back control over the hospital and it was placed into "special measures" in November.

And the centre was given an overall rating of "requires improvement" in its last inspection, with its safety being categorised as "inadequate", the worst possible score.

Ms McBride, who travelled from Gloucestershire to visit her son, said: "I am concerned it is still open.

"I will never know the full extent as to what my son when through when he was there.

"They continued to put him at risk over and over again.

"All the time he was there I was terrified."

Ms McBride also said she wants a personal apology from the hospital and the CQC.

The latest inspection, carried out over a week by the CQC in February and published in May, found a number of concerns with its handling of safety.

The report said: "Staff sometimes worked alone on an apartment with a patient and we were not assured that effective measures were in place to adequately mitigate risk.

"A number of agency staff had not completed the same managing and preventing violence and aggression as other staff.

"We had concerns that this could lead to confusion or errors when carrying out physical restraints with patients.

"Levels of restrictive interventions were high.

"This service had 484 incidences of restraint involving six different patients between November 1, 2019 and February 27, 2020.

"As a result of these physical interventions, a number of staff had been injured."

But the report discovered "all apartments environments were safe, clean, well equipped, well furnished, well maintained and fit for purpose".

And staff understood how to protect patients from abuse and the service worked well with other agencies to do so, inspectors said.

The hospital's effectiveness was classed as "required improvement" as well as its leadership.

But the two fields of whether it is caring and its responsiveness was classed as "good".

The report added: "Staff treated patients with compassion and kindness.

"They respected patients’ privacy and dignity.

"They understood the individual needs of patients in most cases and supported patients to understand and manage their care, treatment or condition."

The hospital was instructed with a number of orders to carry out to make improvements and will remain in "special measures".

The report said: "Although some improvements have been made some areas of concern remain and there remains a rating of inadequate for the safe key question.

"Therefore, this service will remain in special measures and we will continue to monitor the progress being made to meet the regulations."

In response to the inspection, a spokeswoman for ASC Healthcare: "The report is flawed and wrong, the CQC have ignored facts that we have provided to them.

"We continue to challenge the publication of this inspection and are considering bringing a claim for judicial review as we provide excellent care for patients with the highest levels of autism and learning disabilities.

"We are passionate about delivering high quality care to our service users and apologise for any distress caused by previous standards that did not meet expectations at the hospital.

"We have brought in a new, highly skilled and experienced management team and have worked hard to implement improvements at the Breightmet Centre.

"As a result, we were delighted to have had our registration restored to oversee the hospital and the improvement of our CQC rating from the last inspection. 

"As part of the ongoing process of improving our service, we contacted the relatives of all our current services users inviting them to discuss any concerns with us.

"Our door is still open to them as well as to relatives of former service users, and we urge them to meet with us to address any issues."

The CQC also responded to the outcome of the inspection.

A CQC spokesman said: “CQC inspected The Breightmet Centre for Autism from February 19 to 26, 2020.

"Inspectors found some improvements had been made to the service, but concerns were identified with management of risk, staff not receiving appropriate autism training and high numbers of restrictive interventions.

"It was rated 'requires improvement' overall and remains in special measures.

“Inspectors returned to the service, in June, in response to safeguarding concerns.

"Inspectors continue to monitor the service very closely, and any improvements, to ensure people are not being put at risk of harm.

"The inspection report will be published due course.”