Evidence sent to Cumbria Police about 61 baby deaths at church-run home c/o ITV News

'Some babies born with disabilities were denied medical help because they were judged unadoptable, as ITV News Social Affairs Correspondent Sarah Corker reports

---

Evidence has been submitted to Cumbria Police in connection with allegations of historical abuse at a church-run mother and baby institution where more than 60 newborn babies died, following an ITV News investigation.

A new report by Dr Michael Lambert, an historian of the welfare state at Lancaster University, has outlined a high infant death rate at St Monica’s home in Kendal.

The report concluded that the deaths were due to a combination of failings, including inadequate facilities, malpractice and poor care from those delivering babies and a lack of oversight from the church and state.

Analysis of public health records, alongside birth and death certificates, indicated that children with disabilities born at the mother and baby home were deemed "un-adoptable" and denied modern medical care, according to the new research.'

◇

individual

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INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES             

humanistic ------------------------------- mechanistic

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL   

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group

emotional neglect and abuse  grief, trauma and guilt  shame	physical neglect and abuse  high infant death rate inadequate facilities malpractice
mother and baby   social / societal punishment  public health	institutions  criminal investigation  records

Source: ITV: NW News and https://www.itv.com/news/2026-06-09/evidence-sent-to-cumbria-police-about-61-baby-deaths-at-church-run-home

On models, gaps, deficits, neglect

This a.m. I responded to an email from -

the SDOH Listserv at https://listserv.yorku.ca/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=SDOH&A=1

- about a forthcoming book (news to follow). 

I replied, with thoughts (edited) that link to the post earlier today:

On the 'front' - or behind the line(s)?

As a community mental health nurse, I've always recognised (as best I can) the critical, power relation of psychiatry.

This is why I study - champion Hodges' model, because the -

• medical model
• bio-medical
• bio-psycho-social models 

- are all inadequate (in the 21st C. and supposedly post-Institutional care?).*

Inclusion of the 'Political' domain in Hodges' model, is critical in the negotiation between the person and collective.

This is what opens up the wide, expansive 'front' in Hodges' model, where relations can be explored in abstract and concrete terms.

A point I'm currently working through (post - paper?): is it ironic that that education and health have acknowledged and try to mitigate(?) the 'deficit model', but in the very conceptual frameworks / models that these disciplines & professions deploy (esp. medicine?), there is a deficit* - manifest in were we are and how we Care today and tomorrow. This is further aggrevated as capitalism clearly has its way (counter-lobbying the health and care professions)?

*tantamount to neglect?

Despite the pioneering efforts and work of several leaders e.g. Virchow, and fields of medical sociology and public (mental) health.

See also - Joe Wicks: Licensed to Kill Channel 4 UK. 2000hrs 6th October 2025.

'Cereal'

"In HIFA - let's save a space to make sense of mountains of data"

Dear All, (HIFA mail list)

While rather expansive in scope not just reaching to the arts but also referencing nature and mountains, the following blog post may be of interest:

"Health & Care results in mountains of data: c/o Burke & Cao 2024"

https://hodges-model.blogspot.com/2024/08/nan-shepherd-.html

While the focus and purposes for HIFA are clear, in practice 'information' (data, facts, knowledge, wisdom) must always be contextualised, situated, and (potentially) justified.

In addition to relying on the sciences, medicine, nursing and healing practices are also characterised as arts.

See also, the digital humanities and more specifically - 'Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine' https://www.theintima.org/

There have been many posts about records recently, but of course it what goes into the record that is critical.

Salience, what we pay attention to is key.*

The record is critical if something goes wrong and a professional finds themselves in a Coroner's court, and/or disciplinary hearing. The previous posts also discuss the patient's access to their medical record.

I'm not sure if the point has been made but even before 'health literacy' is taken into account, given access a patient may identify many mistakes/errors within the record on many details including demographics and procedures, treatments, diagnoses applied. (There are studies confirming the same - a benefit of IT systems.)

In mental health service - England the care programme approach (CPA) has ended - been retired. Some argue this has been done 'quietly'.

While the emphasis on documentation since 1990s has been onerous for some practitioners in the need for a 'comprehensive' record, the principles of CPA are well-based in practice: Patients (families) are entitled to - 1. A care assessment 2. A care plan 3. A named care-coordinator - keyworker 4. A review 6 monthly; annually as a minimum

For more than a year 1995.., I worked full and p/t as CPA co-ordinator for Chorley and South Ribble Health Authority; and produced a report highlighting the potential benefits of information technology in data gathering and processing and information reporting. (A conference was also organised with 60+ delegates, and 10 software vendors demonstrating their wares.)

The news drove the development and introduction of CPA during the late 1980s, with often stigmatising headlines for many people affected with mental illness - including psychosis it must be added. Recent events are troubling for society and services now, and in terms of history repeating itself:

"On average over a hundred people in Britain a year are killed by someone with serious mental illness. On the day the NHS is Nottingham is found to have missed opportunities to stop Valdo Calocane killing 3 people we ask why lessons aren’t being learned." 'X' https://x.com/BeckyJohnsonSky/status/1823459379846271002

"Between May 2020 and February 2022, eight risk assessments were completed for Calocane by the trust, which the CQC said appear to have been carried out for each of his admissions to hospital and updated at other times during his care. The regulator said that while some risks were highlighted, other assessments “minimised or omitted key details”. https://careappointments.com/care-news/england/211213/cqc-review-of-nottingham-killers-care-finds-key-risk-details-minimised-or-omitted/

The state of mental health services in the UK is much debated and here too 'information' is critical, especially 'seeing' the person and the nuances of interpersonal communication skills. These are often encountered through non-verbal communication and 'clinical intuition' which must be related to professional experience.

So information must simultaneously be recognised as a mechanistic and humanistic melange of processes, purposes, practices and policies (4P's in Hodges' model).

As highlighted before we can also contrast HIFA's and practitioners efforts to combat the severe implications and risks of 'information disorder'. And yet, also recognise how the arts, innovation and creativity also contribute to interpersonal engagement, therapeutic goals, case formulation, health and other literacies using *metaphor* and *analogies* - as per Nan Shepherd's musings explored in the blog post by -

Burke, R., Cao, E. To Care for a Mountain - What medical practitioners can learn from Nan Shepherd. Oxford Review of Books, Summer 2024, Volume 8, Issue 2. p.14. In association with Stanford. (open access)

Patient, public and practitioner safety is always the aim & objective.

Further reading & notes: https://www.cqc.org.uk/publications/nottinghamshire-healthcare-nhsft-special-review-part2/risk-assessment

Whiting, D., Gulati, G., Geddes, J.R., Dean, K. and Fazel, S. (2024), Violence in schizophrenia: triangulating the evidence on perpetration risk. World Psychiatry, 23: 158-160. https://doi.org/10.1002/wps.21171

*I hope to contribute to a 'philosophy of attention' research project, my contribution will draw on clinical experience above and apply Hodges' model to explore and debate ... 'attention', starting in 2025 to c.2030.

Regards to all, Peter Jones

Buses, Eddie Stobart, Lego and Laughing Boy

Individual
|

   INTERPERSONAL   :     SCIENCES               

HUMANISTIC  --------------------------------------  MECHANISTIC      

 SOCIOLOGY  :    POLITICAL 

|

Group

person - personality personal duty of care emotional care experience	buses - Eddie Stobart - Lego space - time 1-day Physical care  Another day the sound of laughter

Source: Twi/X + image:

Whistlestop London visit for @JSTheatre #LaughingBoy, a complete must watch. So lovely to meet the cast and behind the scenes magicians, and see so many #JusticeforLB’ers in the flesh.

Bought a copy of @BylineTimes to read on train home, also @RoseUnwin @sarasiobhan play text 👊 https://t.co/VjLJbBt7M0 pic.twitter.com/A1CrzHliGL

— GeorgeJulian (@GeorgeJulian) April 26, 2024

Op-Ed: Why dignified menstruation matters?

"reproductive health rights are human rights"

individual

|

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

humanistic ----------------------------------------------- mechanistic

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

|

group - population

self self-esteem  self-respect dignity FEMINITY awareness ignorance concepts personal beliefs  anxiety fear stress vulnerability  risk mental health trauma - abuse impact on education self-care self-efficacy health literacy  psychological privacy (this is my period - not my shame ...)

A matter of  human biology:  anatomy & physiology globally? Bangladesh, Nepal, India, other low and middle income countries  in South Asia menstruation, menstrual period adolescence, women of reproductive age wrong information life threatening ... menstrual hygiene  menstrual health management disaster response natural disaster, floods, cyclones, conflict, refugees cyclone shelters lighting physical security  physical access to toilets traditional materials - cloth physical privacy

even if it's yours? intergenerational factors... "When I was a girl..." Women's menstruation menstrual period  cultural and social beliefs Health literacy Health promotion negligence and whisper womanhood: dignity and respect public discussion  stereotype, ideas, taboos, stigma shame age old superstitions  life threatening harmful practices imposed to them by the family members, neighbours and the community [ Community care?! ] positive role models positive support of husbands and families social privacy

Human Rights Declaration United Nations in 1948 'dignified menstruation' UN Water water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) Disaster relief: 1. Male perspective; 2. Cultural taboo; 3. Menstrual health not in plans? power control  budgetary planning Public Health Policy Toilet facilities Provision of toilets Toilet-sewage infrastructure political privacy (do not compromise my privacy  by compromising my rights)

"All the stakeholders should explore all-inclusive 

and 

most comprehensive integrated approach 

to ensure dignified menstruation."

The Daily Observer, Why dignified menstruation matters? by PARVEZ BABUL

My source: HIFA

... and previously on W2tQ

Out of the Shadows - Mental Illness

"How a pioneering approach to treating mental illness is helping to fight one of the world’s most neglected diseases."

Out of the Shadows


My source: Email re. an INTAR 2016 conference call.

Social Care is dry in January

I bought The Times today and on the front page is the news from University of Oxford:

Dehydration ‘common’ among patients admitted from care homes:
http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2015-01-16-dehydration-%E2%80%98common%E2%80%99-among-patients-admitted-care-homes

When nursing and residential homes are struggling to manage an individual's care and look to refer to mental health services (usually) they know they need to asked the 'question'. This is about physical health: does the resident have an infection, are they eating and crucially drinking, are they in pain, constipated. ...

Although the headline augers badly and points to an ongoing (politically) 'inflammatory' problem within the sector, there is a great deal of compassion out there.

A resident's marked emotional distress and torment can upon investigation become a matter of how to also manage the staff's distress as they try to meet the individual's care needs. The latter does not help the former and amongst other things points to an educational need. This is especially so, if residents are to be able to continue to 'age' in their new 'home' with the additional complex needs that might follow.

Fluid balance used to be an element of basic nursing care.

Now of course - social care is not nursing care.

It is not always 'basic' either.

So many gardens: Press Release [ now ]

It had to happen. Twice over.

The irony that just as so many homes with older people living in them have gardens that are in a state of neglect, so too do many nursing and care homes.

Of course this is a sign in those domestics homes of reduced abilities.

In the residential care and nursing homes, garden neglect is reassuring.

A $ure sign that the love and spending is on the blooms inside?

Extrasolar planets, x-phi and The Francis report

I'm sure there is a planet out there - extrasolar - with the physical make-up such that be it an incredible water fall, tidal surge, or rolling polished mega-rocks - the noise, could we hear it, would do far more than make your ears bleed.

Today, here in England there is a legal, health and political media event of very serious import. The ruckus in health and political circles might also make for more than bleeding noses and definitely thousands of continuing broken hearts.

The Francis report will be published today. Further insights and findings will be revealed c/o the Public Inquiry with recommendations on the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust health care debacle.

In Philosophy Now Jan/Feb 2013 Tibor Fischer's editorial mentions the need for marketing within philosophy and literature, with the suggestion of placing x-phi on a T-shirt.

'X-phi' of course reads as experimental philosophy.

In health care, nursing and social care evidence counts for everything (and for h2cm too). Evidence based practice that is founded upon research is essential. Experiments are needed that can be reproduced, extended, validated. ...

Today is a profoundly sad day for everyone in the NHS, as many commentators have already predicted. The future constantly beckons, but today reflect we must that in the clamour for evidence based care, does this mean we must don T-shirts?:

x-care

Have we forgotten the principles of what it is to care: compassion - our duty of care?

No, but amid the cacophony of technology, technical care, the targets, statistics, budget cuts, the challenges to morale and nursing's values we need to be ever more vigilant.

We must learn how to x-listen and x-shout in the 21st century health care environment(s).

But experiments in how to listen, how to blow a whistle? Surely not.

Well yes: as clearly here basic care systems did not work they failed terribly: individually, organisationally and across the FIVE care domains of h2cm.

Person-centred care and semantic inflation

Time laughs at us, with us and has the last laugh. If you are ever complacent and by virtue of your years you venture to think to yourself:

Well we've been working on this now for 20-30 years look at the progress we've made. ...

Time is always there to remind you:
Hey, just who are you trying to fool?
You are a lifelong learner!

The number of personnel and services that describe themselves as person-centred is an ongoing theme of so many CVs, policies, SLAs, commissioning and consultant's presentations and lectures. ...

Whether in a ward, service, or organisation's philosophy, person-centred is a term that is being diluted to the extent that semantic inflation devalues what is supposed to be the main currency? Or are we admitting that this is the cost of the political games that people play? Whatever your view, there are insights of progress won, but also reminders on how much remains to be done.

Health and social care being multicontextual demands the existence of multiple currencies. One additional currency begs that we compare A, B, C with the evidence base.

If this is the crucible of our person-centred times then what is burning?

• Nursing ethics?
• Nursing education?
• Idealistic aspiration? (Yes, we will get there!)
• New Age incense?
• Policy initiatives?
• Funding allocations?
• Nursing activism (Or, are there any balls in the house)?
• Service infrastructures?

Although the media temperature is rising here in the UK, as health, itself economically recumbent is moved to ICU being so politicised; the Francis Report provides evidence of a dire lack of person-centred care. Recalling my basic nurse training: what can be more person-centred than ensuring that a patient has the necessary fluids and diet?

For women who suffer a miscarriage - where should they be nursed as debated in today's Guardian newspaper? What is person-centred care in maternity and gynaecology services?

In-patient provision and transitions from child-youth-adult provide other opportunities and major challenges for health and social care to demonstrate their person-centredness.

There are so many ways to be person-centred, so many levels, some may even be contradictory(?).


I wonder how many of those people highlighted in the Francis Report also had a form of dementia - whether diagnosed or not? Personhood and the need to acknowledge and sustain the person are not new.

Even if a service is person-centred in terms of the environment, meal choices, therapeutic options, belongings, personal space, proximity to home and relatives ... the crux at the center is the attitude of staff, and their having the time and space:

"to be"

person-centred

Additional links:

Mumsnet

Atkins, L. (2010) NHS 'must lessen trauma of miscarriages' Parents web forum Mumsnet calls for new code of practice to help women who lose their babies, The Guardian, Tuesday 2 March.