Calls for action over unregulated healthcare workers after NHS mental health abuse scandal exposed

Sign up for our free Health Check email to receive exclusive analysis on the week in health Get our free Health Check email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Unregulated healthcare workers are a risk to the most vulnerable patients, a former victim’s commissioner has warned afterThe Independent and Sky News uncovered a “horrifying” sexual abuse scandal within NHS mental health services. “If there has been abuse from mental health care assistants who are also agency staff who are coming in and going out from one hospital to another, that needs to be looked at,” she said. The former victims commissioner Dame Vera Baird Alison Leary, professor of healthcare and workforce at South Bank University, said: “Health and social care are heavily reliant on an unregulated support workforce to deliver care. Shadow health secretary Wes Streeting says hospital leaders must be asked ‘urgent questions’ over sexual assault figures Despite the government promising to end mixed-sex care in 2010, figures for more than 30 trusts show 417 “breaches” to mixed-sex care standards from 2019 to November 2023.