Disabled people are being neglected in homes run by one of the UK’s largest private care companies, with one vulnerable resident filmed eating out of a bin and another left with an untreated infection causing his foot to rot, as ITV News Investigations Editor Daniel Hewitt reports.
Additional reporting by ITV News Senior Producer Isabel Alderson-Blench
Warning: This report contains information some readers may find distressing. If you have been affected by the issues raised, please find help and support links at the bottom of the article.
An ITV News investigation has uncovered allegations of multiple failings at residential and supported-living homes run by Lifeways, the UK’s largest provider of community care for adults with complex conditions.
In one home in Coventry, camera footage obtained by ITV News shows a young man with learning disabilities, autism and bipolar disorder, who needs 24-hour, one-on-one care, eating out of a rubbish bin in the middle of the night.
In another Lifeways home in North London, I was told how the foot of a man with Down’s Syndrome turned black, after an infection was left undetected and untreated for weeks, causing him to require hospital treatment.
Lifeways CEO Andrea Kinkade told ITV News she was “appalled” by our findings and that staff had been suspended and removed from the company.
If you have been affected by any of the issues in this story you can contact us at investigations@itv.com
Lifeways is a private company which operates in England, Scotland and Wales, contracted by local authorities to provide care for more than 4,000 people with complex conditions, including learning disabilities, autism, acquired brain injuries, and mental health conditions.
Yet several families, as well as former and current staff members, have told ITV News that they believe Lifeways is consistently putting profits before the people it is paid to care for, including people with learning disabilities who are unable to communicate and advocate for themselves.
Last year, Lindsay Foskett reached out to ITV News about the treatment of her son Connor at a Lifeways-run facility.
Connor is 23 and has a rare genetic condition called Phelan-McDermid Syndrome, which causes developmental delay and autism. He also has bipolar disorder.
In 2018, Connor was placed under the care of a Lifeways-run residential home in Coventry. The city council contracted Lifeways to provide Connor with 24-hour, one-to-one care at a cost of £4,700 a week.
However, two years ago, Lindsay started to worry about her son’s physical and mental health after he gained seven stone in weight.
He was barely leaving the facility, despite the council paying for extensive activities in the community. His mood was also deteriorating.
One afternoon, Lindsay got a phone call from a friend saying she had found Connor walking the streets, several miles from his home, on his own.
When Lindsay called Lifeways, she says staff did not even know he had gone missing, despite being paid to provide round-the-clock care.
Increasingly concerned for Connor’s health and safety, Lindsay installed a camera in Connor’s flat.
“Within three days, we saw five members of staff neglecting and abusing him,” said Lindsay.
“They would mock him, they would vape next to him, shout in his face, he didn’t have a drink for 14 hours, and he’s meant to drink regularly because of the effect the drugs he needs have on his kidneys.”
She watched as her son was left alone on multiple occasions for hours at a time.
On the night of January 10th 2024, footage showed Connor alone, eating from a bin he had placed on his lap. He was eating out of it for almost an hour.
“It hurts to watch it,” Lindsay told me. “We had to take him to the GP to get a full check up because he couldn’t tell us what he had eaten.
“It was heartbreaking and it consumed my life, because once I’d seen that, I couldn’t stop watching (the camera).”
On several occasions, footage showed Connor’s carers fast asleep on Connor’s sofa in the middle of the day while he walks around the flat unattended.
Connor is seen speaking to his carer, clearly asking them something, but the carer ignores him completely. One carer is shown vaping next to Connor in his flat.
“When Lifeways first opened, I thought I could die happy, knowing he would be ok, but now I just think if anything happened to me, what would happen to him?” she explained.
“I’m not just doing this for Connor, it is happening to someone else’s child, someone else’s brother or sister, and it needs to stop.”
We took the findings of our investigation to Coventry City Council.
Pete Fahy, Coventry City Council’s Director of Care, Health and Housing, called Connor’s experience “appalling.”
“That type of conduct, that sort of neglect is never acceptable,” he told us.
“Improvements have been made at the home, and there have been much less incidents reported recently…. We need to continue to work with Lindsay and Connor to ensure he’s appropriately supported.
“We hope to never see that type of incident happen anywhere in the city ever again.”
The last inspection of Lifeway’s Coventry home by the Care Quality Commission, the independent regulator of health and social care in England, downgraded the home from ‘Good’ to ‘Requires Improvement’, the regulator’s second lowest rating.
ITV News has also heard from several former and current Lifeways staff members.
Many said the homes they worked in were constantly understaffed, with workers having no or very minimal training to provide personal care for people with complex mental and physical needs.
Some said that they watched residents gain weight at an alarming rate in the time they worked there, because they were not taken out into the community for exercise or given healthy meals.
One whistleblower spoke to ITV News anonymously about her experience as a care home manager for Lifeways.
Staffing levels, she claimed, were regularly below safe levels and “dangerous” at weekends.
“You would get in so much trouble if you booked agency workers, even if people called in sick,” she told ITV News.
“They were calling in sick because they were tired.”
“The money from the local council was probably going in Lifeways’ pocket, because if we were receiving it we would have been able to give (the residents) a much better quality of life,” the whistleblower told ITV News.
“The residents are just a number to them, they don’t care about the person’s name or need.”
Exclusive analysis for ITV News, by public service analysts Tussell, shows that Lifeways has received almost £1.5 billion in taxpayer-funded contracts with local councils and the NHS since 2016.
Its latest financial records show the company’s revenue increased in 2024 to £295 million.
Analysis of data from the Care Quality Commission by ITV News shows that across the 19 Lifeways services inspected by the regulator in 2024, 63% were rated ‘Requires Improvement’ (the second-lowest rating).
A Freedom of Information request by ITV News also found that the CQC received 366 safeguarding alerts, safeguarding concerns or other concerns about Lifeways services in 2024. This is a 33% increase from 2023. Of the 366 received in 2024, 232 were safeguarding alerts or concerns.
Steven Baskin is 47 years old and has Down’s Syndrome. His father, John, always wanted to make sure Steven could live as independently as possible, supported with the care he needed.
The day I meet Steven, he greets me with a beaming smile and welcomes us in the supported living home he lives in with full time carers in North London.
He takes me around the home, introducing me to the staff and the home’s manager.
“This is my assistant,” Steven joked, giving her a big hug. “I like her a lot.”
Steven shows me his bedroom. On the wall is a collage of photographs from happy times – Steven dressed as batman, as superman and wearing his beloved Liverpool FC shirt.
“I love it here, it’s great,” Steven tells me. “Much better than the last place.”
His father, John, who is 80, visits Steven every weekend. They go to the cinema and to restaurants, and on occasion to the West End to see a musical, which is Steven’s passion.
John is also Steven’s advocate. For many years the only suitable home he could find for his son was 60 miles away in Northampton. Then in 2012, he managed to find Steven a supported living apartment close to home in North London, managed by Lifeways.
John says by the time he removed Steven from their care in 2020, his son was a shadow of the bubbly, confident and happy man I met.
Like Connor, Steven was gaining significant amounts of weight.
“I was particularly worried about his health. He was getting fatter and fatter, he was unhappy,” John told me.
“He wouldn’t get out of bed. The state of the flat was terrible. Rotting food, filthy and dirty. There was a lack of soap for him to wash.”
In 2019 Steven became unwell and was admitted to hospital for treatment. John went to see him, and during the visit Steven took his socks off. One of his feet had turned black.
“I was absolutely shocked. I called the hospital staff and they were shocked as well. Nobody at Lifeways had thought to remark on it or notify anyone,” John told me.
“I was really horrified, because it looked like he could lose a foot. It wasn’t just a blister.”
Asked Steven what it was like being cared for by Lifeways, Steven says: “I didn’t like it. The staff were nasty, the way they talked to me. They tried to kill me, that’s how I feel.”
John decided Steven could no longer stay with Lifeways and, in 2020, removed him from their care. He now lives in a new home run by a different care provider.
“I do feel like when my time comes, he will be safe here,” he said. “That’s the biggest worry for a parent from the time their child is born, like Steven, is what will happen when I am not here to look after him?
“You rely so heavily on these places, as a parent you assume these places are vetted by the council but in the case of Lifeways it turned out not to be the case.
“(Lifeways) didn’t put the residents first, they put the residents last.”
In May 2021, the Local Government Ombudsman found in favour of John’s complaint about the lack of communication from Lifeways regarding Steven’s treatment.
A spokesperson from Barnet Council, who pay Lifeways for Connor’s care, told us: “We are very sorry to hear that, in this instance, the communications received from the care provider Lifeways appears to have been below acceptable standards.”
“As such the Ombudsman recommended that, and the council did, apologise…for Lifeways’ response.”
In an interview with ITV News, Lifeways CEO Andrea Kinkade said: “It’s absolutely appalling to hear those stories and to hear about anybody who receives neglectful care or lack of care. I think it is absolutely shameful.
“These situations are historic. They were dealt with robustly at the time. As soon as we were alerted to them, we suspended people and they were subsequently dismissed.”
“We deliver 3 million care hours a year with 10,000 employees. Thankfully, this is rare. It is awful, but it is rare.”
According to Lifeways’ most recent public financial statements, their four directors, including Ms Kinkade, received total annual pay of £ 1.6 million between them, with the highest paid director receiving £923,000.
Lifeways is currently advertising support worker roles paying £11.44 per hour – the minimum wage for over 21s.
When asked about this difference, Ms Kinkade said, “I think that I’m paid in accordance with my peers in the sector and my male predecessor.
“I was brought in to turn the company around and I’ve led a significant transformation and I am proud of what I’ve done to do that. I’m proud of my executive team who have helped me do that and I’m proud of all of our frontline workforce who have also helped us do that.
James Bullion, interim Chief Inspector of Adult Social Care and Integrated Care at the Care Quality Commission said: “Everybody deserves to be treated with dignity and respect and to receive safe, high-quality care. In the cases featured in this report, care clearly fell unacceptably far below what people deserved.
“We will be monitoring the services provided by Lifeways closely and will take further action if we find evidence that the provider has not made all necessary changes to ensure that people receive good, safe, supportive care.”
If you have been affected by the issues raised in this article, please find help and support at:
- Access Social Care – provides free legal advice and information for people with social care needs and helps them to achieve a better quality of life.
- Samaritans – on 116 123, with further information available at samaritans.org
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