New corporate abuse law introduced

Former care services minister Paul Burstow has introduced a new Bill in Parliament on 16 January that would amend the Health and Social Care Act 2008 to include a new offence of corporate neglect, which will attempt to ensure that abuse of the kind suffered by residents of the notorious Winterbourne View care home can never happen again.

Under the Bill, corporate bodies, including private sector corporations, public sector entities, or charities, would face unlimited fines, remedial orders and publicity orders. Such penalties mirror the sanctions introduced in the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007.

Burstow proposed the Bill after editing and publishing a report in January entitled Care and Corporate Neglect: Corporate accountability and adult safeguarding, which explores how corporate bodies could be held criminally responsible for abuse and neglect that takes place in hospitals and care homes.

As well as introducing a new offence of corporate neglect, Burstow’s Bill proposes changing the law to require any person or organisation to supply information to an adult safeguarding board, in the same way that any safeguarding board for children and young people can already demand information.

The Corporate Accountability and Safeguarding of Adults from Abuse and Neglect Bill, which is now a Private Member’s Bill, will be read for the second time on 1 March.