The NHS plays safe in its treatment of vulnerable children, rather than offering them the care they deserve, a charity head has said.
Camila Batmanghelidjh, the founder and head of Kids Company, told the NHS Confederation conference in Manchester that the health service does not lack quality and dedication, but fails by treating vulnerable youngsters with what she called "veneer and vanilla".
She defined veneer as ticking boxes. "It looks good and it looks safe," she said. "Veneer protects against litigation, but the job is not being done." Vanilla meant a "killer neutrality", under which NHS organisations agreed on a level of provision, then staff colluded in not rocking the boat, even if it was inadequate, despite the fact that "we're betraying our patients".
"Vanilla is the moment when you hush up, and you don't speak dare speak," Batmanghelidjh said, adding that it generates "personal shame" among professionals, who are aware of the gap between what should be done and what gets done. While veneer acts to protect people working within an institution from being attacked for not following the rules, "your veneer and your yearning for safety is killing off something good," she argued, adding that it is "eroding your own excellence and betraying the very people you are caring for".
"There's a collusion between people feeling servile to the political structures, and not objecting sufficiently when this particular group of children's needs are not met," she added.
Batmanghelidjh's organisation Kids Company works with 14,000 vulnerable children a year, virtually all hearing about its services through word of mouth from other youngsters. Among other things, it represents them to NHS and social services, such as in challenging the adequacy of offers from mental health trusts. She said that the charity's clients, many of whom have suffered abuse, are unlikely to get much out of six sessions of cognitive behavioural therapy, but this is what many are offered.
She said that the charity doesn't get local funding for its work, which is based around 'street-level' centres open from 9am to 10pm and round-the-clock telephone support lines, because its clients refer themselves, although it does receive 30% of its income from central government.
Batmanghelidjh said that although financial cuts will be difficult, NHS staff can do a great deal through offering a human response, such as apologising if the ideal treatment is not available rather than excusing this.
"In the challenges ahead, don't underestimate the power of love," she told the audience. "Restoring dignity to the individual might be the biggest gift in your hand to give, even if the right treatment isn't available to you." She said that many vulnerable people see the NHS as the safest place available to them.
Batmanghelidjh compared the billions of pounds spent on nuclear defence to the changes in brain chemistry research has found taking place in abused children, and added that they are becoming the equivalent of bombs, a greater risk to Britain's communities than other countries' weapons.
"It will be love, it will be attachment, it will be the care that these children need to make the necessary recovery and become pro-social," she said.
