Whorlton Hall: CQC denies publishing “whitewash” report of hospital accused of abusing patients

There was no cover up or whitewash of what took place at a specialist hospital for people with learning disabilities who were found to have been abused by staff,1 the regulator of the NHS in England, the Care Quality Commission, has told MPs and peers.

CQC officials appeared before the parliamentary joint committee on human rights during an evidence session on Wednesday 12 June as part of the committee’s inquiry into detention of children and young adults with learning disabilities or autism.

The session focused largely on the CQC’s inspection of the specialist hospital Whorlton Hall in County Durham, where abuse was exposed by the BBC’s Panorama television programme last month.2

Before the session the committee had asked the CQC for the previously unpublished findings of a 2015 inspection of Whorlton Hall, which the regulator submitted.

The committee’s chair, Harriet Harman, challenged the witnesses about the findings of the …