Not a child, not a baby P, not even a youngster – but my own 83 year old relative died as a result of neglect in care. While in the care of a so-called care home. To this day, I am still trying to work out how on earth this care home was ever allowed to accept elderly, vulnerable people, if so many systems were not in place to protect them.

They refused to allow me full access to the full report of the investigation carried out by the local authority, and have only allowed me access to an abridged and anonymised version. I have now been told that the investigation and the report were never carried out with the intention of it being “in the public domain”.

And all along, I have asked why others were allowed full input to all the meetings, but I was not. All the guilty parties were allowed – but I was not. Their interests were protected. Mine were not.

The secrecy protects the guilty, but does nothing to give me any indication that lessons will be learned. I asked why all the staff involved were not required to swear an oath that they were all telling the truth and nothing but the truth, I was told that they would never agree to any questioning if that was a requirement. So much for openness and transparency.

I also argued that it was surely a professional ‘duty of care’ of all involved to speak out, for what they said to be heard/seen/read in public, so that we could have confidence in their future work.

If it all happens behind closed doors, then how can any one of us have faith in their standards of care.