Panorama On Newsnight?

Last night’s BBC Panorama on Jimmy Saville has left me slightly shaken. I cannot quite figure out what the agenda was behind this programme but the outcome was to clear the BBC of any wrong doing’s in not airing the BBC Newsnight report in November 2011.

Are the BBC along with other institutions not to be held accountable for 5 decades of abuse by one of its employees under its guardianship and roof?

Mother Care

Recent reports and reviews of maternity units and last night’s Panaroma programme have highlighted the failures of maternity units up and down the country.  With a baby boom of one child born every 40 seconds, patient to midwife ratio at 32 to 1, and complications and fatalities increasing, it is even more evident that good quality maternity care is vital and demanded.

This particular subject is very close to my heart as my own birth story nearly ended up as a tragedy totally due to an understaffed unit and appalling midwife care.

Ethics, What Ethics?

The BBC Trust ruled that the footage on the Panorama programme showing small children working on clothing for Primark in Banglore in June 2008 was not authentic. The programme highlighted how Primark’s own ethical guidelines were being broken with its suppliers outsourcing to home workers and smaller factories who were using small children.

 

However, some of the journalists concerned, including Guardian media correspondence Roy Greensdale, are outraged and are concerned that this ruling has been made on inconclusive evidence.

What’s Happened To Care?

Two days on and I am still really disturbed by this week’s Panorama programme on BBC 1 on care homes. The programme secretly filmed the tragic abuse taking place at Winterbourne View in Bristol. It was graphically shocking, distressing and unbelievable.

The programme follows the release of a damning report by the Care Quality Commission on the state of care provided in some hospitals for the elderly, where doctors were said to be prescribing drinking water to patients.

What has happened to the “care” profession in the UK? How has bullying, abuse and neglect become common place? How in 2011, can a place like Winterbourne View exist?