Rebecca Thomas

The Independent • 12th June 2025

These children died after being left alone in their beds in the same care home.

Three disabled children died in similar circumstances at the UK's largest brain rehabilitation centre for children despite warnings about care failings, The Independent can reveal. Five-year-old Connor Wellsted died in 2017 at The Children's Trust’s (TCT) Tadworth unit in Surrey, having suffocated when a cot bumper became lodged under his chin. Six years later, in 2023, Raihana Oluwadamilola Awolaja, 12, died after her breathing tube became blocked, and Mia Gauci-Lamport, 16, died after she was...

The Independent • 10th June 2025

He was trapped in hospitals for a decade – now Nicholas is finally free

Just one year ago, Nicholas Thornton lay in a windowless hospital room, in a bed he could not leave on his own, unable to speak.He had spent 10 years like this, in hospital wards – as well as in unsuitable dementia care homes and psychiatric units – all because he had learning disabilities and autism. Nicholas was finally able to tell his story to The Independent and Channel 4 News, communicating through a laptop to reveal how he had been repeatedly failed by the care system.Now, 12 months on, h...

The Independent • 23rd February 2024

Lying in agony in urine-soaked sheets: the horrific reality of life on an NHS ward

Left in agonising pain, with staff ignoring his cries for help, Martin Wild called 999 from his hospital bed, desperate for someone to get him the medication he needed.This was just the beginning of the 73-year-old’s “nightmare” experience at the hands of Salford Royal Hospital. Over nearly five months, the former car salesman says he was subjected to prolonged periods of neglect, including being left to lie in urine-soaked sheets, pleading for medication.He lost so much weight that, according t...

The Independent • 8th November 2023

Nicholas’s story: ‘I’ve been locked up for 10 years just because I’m autistic.’

In the windowless room where he spends 24 hours a day, lying in the bed he cannot leave, Nicholas Thornton reaches for his laptop and begins to type. It is the only way he can communicate.The 28-year-old is bedbound, unable to move and unable to speak, the effects of more than 10 years trapped in hospitals and units that cannot care for his needs. Nicholas, who is autistic and has a learning disability, has been moved again and again since he was first sectioned aged 16, ferried between units hu...

The Independent • 27th September 2023

Revealed: NHS ‘culture of fear’ that leaves rogue nurses free to abuse patients

Nurses and midwives accused of serious sexual, physical and racial abuse are being allowed to keep working on wards because whistleblowers are being ignored, a damning new report has found.Staff are too scared to report their concerns to the nursing regulator because of a “culture of fear” within the watchdog, documents seen by The Independent reveal.One whistleblower, speaking to this publication, drew parallels with the Lucy Letby case, accusing the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) of being...

The Independent • 19th April 2023

The harrowing ‘systemic abuse’ at children’s hospitals revealed

Children say they were “treated like animals” and left traumatised as part of a decade of “systemic abuse” by a group of mental health hospitals, an investigation by The Independent and Sky News has found.The Department of Health and Social Care has now launched a probe into the allegations of 22 young women who were patients in units run by The Huntercombe Group, which has run at least six children’s mental health hospitals, between 2012 and this year. They say they suffered treatment including...

The Independent • 10th January 2023

Revealed: Record 50,000 patients a week face 12-hour A&E waits

The number of patients waiting more than 12 hours in A&E for treatment has exceeded 50,000 a week for the first time, The Independent can reveal.Leaked NHS data shows that last month as many as one in eight patients faced a “trolley wait” – the time between attending A&E and being admitted – longer than 12 hours, as the health service comes under ever greater strain.The Independent previously revealed that the number of deaths linked to long delays for emergency treatment had risen to as many as...

The Independent • 12th August 2022

‘Apocalyptic’ A&E waits that could be driving 1,000 patient deaths a month revealed

A&E waits are now “apocalyptic” and “worse than ever imagined” leaked NHS data shows, and could be driving 1,000 patient deaths a month, The Independent can reveal.Almost 700,000 people have waited more than 12 hours in A&E in the first seven months of 2022, according to leaked NHS data.The “hidden” monthly trolley waits, not published in national data, have more than doubled this year in comparison to 2019.Dr Katherine Henderson, president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, warned that...

The Independent • 3rd May 2022

Can the NHS live with Covid?

The NHS is under unsustainable pressure at every level, from GP surgeries to emergency wards, as delays to care, soaring demand and a workforce hit by sickness and burnout combine.As ministers insist Britain must “live with Covid” and move on from the pandemic, on the front line of the health service the strain is greater than during the last wave of coronavirus.Figures seen by The Independent indicate that the number of patients stuck in hospital beds despite being ready to go home is higher th...