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Our reporting of the failings<\/a> of the Huntercombe Hospital in Maidenhead, renamed Taplow Manor, and finally closed in 2023<\/a>, should act as a warning of what can happen in the mental healthcare sector. <\/p>\n Most mental healthcare in Britain is good and compassionate, where it is available. The biggest problem is long waiting lists, especially for young people, and especially at a time<\/a> when mental illness is becoming more common among young people<\/a> for reasons that are not well understood. <\/p>\n But The Independent\u2019s campaigning journalism, led by our award-winning reporter Rebecca Thomas<\/a>, has revealed the dangers of institutions such as Huntercombe when they fail to meet the standards that every patient has a right to expect. <\/p>\n Huntercombe had a history of poor care, which its owners repeatedly insisted to the authorities they were putting right. It should have been closed a long time before<\/a> it finally shut its doors. <\/p>\n In our report today, Philip King, a former Huntercombe Group executive, speaking out for the first time, says that the hospital should have been closed<\/a> years before it was.<\/p>\n Our report focuses on the tragic case of Ruth Szymankiewicz, a 14-year-old patient who died in 2022, two days after she fatally self-harmed when she was left alone by an inexperienced care worker, who had had a day and a half of training, and who was hired under a fake ID<\/a>. <\/p>\n In the five years before Ruth\u2019s death, the Care Quality Commission, the body charged with ensuring that hospitals, care homes, and mental health services provide safe and effective care, published four reports warning about standards at the hospital.<\/p>\n Ruth\u2019s parents feel that they were misled when the Commission, which had rated the hospital \u201cinadequate\u201d in February 2021, changed it in July 2021, saying that improvements had been made. Our report reveals that just 11 days before Ruth died, the watchdog raised fresh concerns about understaffing at the hospital and found staff were not being told what was required of them.<\/p>\n We believe that Ruth\u2019s death and the wider failings of Huntercombe contain two important lessons, and we hope that Wes Streeting, the health and social care secretary, will act upon them. <\/p>\n