Challenging poor practice, abusive practice and inadequate complaints procedures: a personal narrative

The impetus for this paper was the Channel 5 documentary Who Cares for Gary? and the combined efforts of the author, her family and friends to challenge practice within one of the units featured. The paper describes a fundamentally disruptive sequence of decisions and events in the life of the author's brother and affirms that the consequences of abuse and mechanisms to challenge it go beyond individual suffering.