New Script stands in solidarity with people with learning disabilities and their families who have fought for accountability for the harm and abuse experienced at Muckamore. Their courage, determination, and unwavering refusal to be silenced were instrumental in bringing about yesterday’s report. We pay tribute to their resilience and their tireless pursuit of truth, accountability, and justice.

This report has exposed shocking levels of harm and abuse suffered by people with learning disabilities in the care of the state. Harm that could and should have been prevented by all those with a duty of care to these individuals and families.

While we are still reading the detail of the report, among its key findings are: 

• Belfast Trust’s focus on governance processes rather than outcomes, creating a culture where serious failings were overlooked and opportunities to protect patients were missed.

• Over-reliance on executive reassurance, limited interrogation of data and insufficient challenge of clinical and social care risks

• Systemic weaknesses in complaint handling, oversight, and organisational learning

• Failure of RQIA oversight mechanisms to operate as an effective safety net, with oversight being reactive rather than preventative. 

The report makes clear that these failures were not isolated incidents but systemic shortcomings that caused profound suffering.

The sad reality is that for families involved in the New Script campaign, these findings of systemic harm are all too familiar, based on their own experiences of mental health services. 

Those responsible must be held accountable. The Department of Health and all agencies involved must commit to the urgent implementation of all the report’s recommendations in full. This will ensure that people with learning disabilities and their families can have confidence that such abuses will never be allowed to happen again.

Read the full report here