Ministers consider staff body cameras to tackle NHS abuse scandals

As reported by The Independent, ministers warned use of cameras in hospital could breach human rights and patient confidentiality

Senior sources with knowledge of the conversation between the Department for Health and Social Care and the NHS have raised concerns about the plans. There are fears that using the technology in mental health units could have implications for human rights and patient confidentiality.

One senior figure criticised the proposals and said: “The DHSC are all talking about body-worn cameras, closed circuit TV, etc… The whole thing is fraught with huge difficulties regarding human rights, about confidentiality. They are thinking about it [cameras] and it is ridiculous.”

The DHSC’s mental health minister Maria Caulfield said in parliament earlier this month that she and health secretary Steve Barclay were due to meet with NHS officials to discuss what response was needed to recent exposes of abuse within mental health services.

It comes after a string of reports from The Independent, BBC Panorama, and Dispatches revealing abuse of inpatients.

Following a scathing independent review into the deaths of three young women, Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Trust said it is piloting the use of body-worn cameras across 10 inpatient wards ‘to support post incident reviews for staff and patients.’

Labour’s shadow mental health minister Dr Rosena Allin-Khan has called for an urgent review of inpatient mental health services nationally, while many charities have called for a public inquiry.

NHS England wrote to all NHS mental health trusts and private providers asking them to review their safety measures onwards in October.

Speaking at the NHS Providers conference last week Mr Barclay said in response to questions about mental health services:

“Probably one of the NHS England leaders, I meet most frequently is Claire Murdoch in my sort of brief tenure. So there’s a series of meetings there. We’re very focused on mental health, not least in lines of the urgent question last week, and some of the issues that arose in inpatient units.

“One of the things I’ve been talking to [Maria] Caulfield, quite a bit about is the paucity of data to better sort of identify those issues in terms of those inpatient [units] and we’re looking very closely at that…

“So there’s a lot of work parliament was focused on this last week, I had a series of meetings over the last week on mental health. I’ve commissioned work, as I say, through the relevant minister [in] my department, particularly looking… in terms of the inpatient care units and what’s going on.”