Whistleblowers who worked for the Blue Ribbon Healthcare Group told ITV News Investigations Editor Daniel Hewitt residents were seriously neglected and left in filthy conditions
Warning: This report contains information some readers may find distressing. Please use the help and support links at the bottom of the article if you have been affected by the issues raised
Additional reporting by ITV News Investigations Producer Lili Donlon-Mansbridge
Allegations of physical assault, sexual abuse and drug-taking have been uncovered at an award-winning care company for adults with learning disabilities.
An ITV News investigation into Blue Ribbon Healthcare Group has exposed claims of staff misconduct and neglect at multiple care homes and supported living facilities across the North West of England.
At one residential home run by Blue Ribbon, several staff members were suspended, and police were called after they “bench-pressed” a resident with learning disabilities and threw him across the room.
At another supported living service, two staff were investigated for sexually abusing a vulnerable resident after they encouraged them to touch their breasts and buttocks.
Multiple whistleblowers who worked for the company told ITV News residents are being seriously neglected in “filthy” and “dangerous” conditions, they “wouldn’t leave a dog in”.
An internal email seen by ITV News shows the company’s chief executive describing one residential home as “revolting” and at risk of “significant enforcement action” if inspected.
Blue Ribbon, which also runs Forevermore Care and Cade Care, is a private company which provides residential care and supported living for adults with learning disabilities, autism and other mental health conditions. It operates across the North West of England.
Over the course of the investigation, ITV News spoke to multiple sources, including eight people who have worked for Blue Ribbon, and the families of several Blue Ribbon residents.
Multiple sources allege that Blue Ribbon staff across different services were negligent in their care of vulnerable adults, with carers found sleeping while on shift, ignoring residents and at times leaving them unattended. One carer was found to be regularly taking cocaine while on shift.
One family, whose loved one had profound learning disabilities and lived in a Blue Ribbon home for more than two years, said they found him naked outside with his feet covered in sores in a pool of his own urine, faeces and vomit.
On another occasion, paramedics were called because he had developed frostbite.
- Other allegations uncovered by ITV News include:
- One senior staff member was suspended for psychological abuse and threats of physical abuse of a resident with learning disabilities, after working at Blue Ribbon for up to four years.
- One resident was found to have attacked another staff member with an ornamental samurai sword kept in his supported living residence.
- Staff were giving medication without training
- Staff employed through an agency were found sleeping on shift
- One resident was convicted of online child sexual offences whilst living in Blue Ribbon’s Supported Living service
When approached by ITV News, Blue Ribbon did not deny that any of the incidents took place, but said: “Many do not reflect the information available to us or are presented without important clinical, regulatory or factual context.
“Other concerns relate to historic incidents that were thoroughly investigated at the time”.
Blue Ribbon is a private care company, but it is funded by taxpayers through care packages with local councils and NHS Trusts.
Data shared exclusively with ITV News by public contracts analysts Tussell shows that local authorities and the NHS Blue Ribbon Healthcare Group has received at least £31 million in public money through these on care packages since 2020.
ITV News has seen an internal email sent in November 2025, in which Blue Ribbon’s CEO Charlotte Smith admitted her own serious concerns about staff and the standard of care at one of Blue Ribbon’s residential services, Willow Lodge in Accrington.
Ms. Smith states that Willow Lodge was at “significant risk” of an inadequate rating by the regulator – the lowest care providers can be given.
In her email, Ms. Smith goes on to describe multiple serious safeguarding issues at Willow Lodge.
She states she found “incident forms” – legal documents written when a vulnerable adult is involved in an accident – “strewn all over the office”, and a litany of medication errors, including evidence that staff who had been suspended from giving medication were still administering it to residents.
She described the furniture in the communal areas as “revolting” and wrote that, if the Care Quality Commission (CQC) was to visit, she believed Willow Lodge would be “facing significant enforcement actions”.
Care providers in England are regulated by the CQC, which has the power to close down, and prosecute companies where it finds bad care.
Blue Ribbon told ITV News that Ms Smith’s email demonstrates governance in action and that concerns were identified, escalated and addressed through Blue Ribbon’s governance processes.
ITV News has also obtained evidence of the conditions in some of Blue Ribbon’s services. One video, taken by a former member of staff last year, showed a resident’s supported living flat filled with rubbish.
It showed mould growing in Tupperware boxes of food allegedly delivered to the resident by their family. Another photo shows Blue Ribbon staff asleep on shift.
Rohan, a 21-year-old man with learning disabilities, lived in Blue Ribbon’s Millbrook service in Preston between August 2023 and March 2026.
In a statement responding to ITV News investigation, Lancashire County Council, who commissions Blue Ribbon’s services, called our findings “extremely serious” and said they were “investigating the quality and safety” of the care provider.
According to Tussell’s data, Lancashire County Council has spent over £9m on care contracts with Blue Ribbon since 2020.
The “no-care” home
“I feel like we’ve lived through a nightmare”, said Liz, Rohan’s mum.
We met Liz and her partner Ian at their home in Lancashire. They told us what happened to their son Rohan.
He has Kleefsa syndrome, a rare genetic disorder which affects a person’s development and communication. He is almost entirely non-verbal and requires two-to-one care at all times.
“He’s really cheeky. He loves chatting, using sign language so he’ll constantly ask you for cheese and cake and he thinks it’s all very funny,” Liz told us, when we asked what Rohan is like.
“One of his characteristics of his genetic condition is that he has a happy disposition. So you can’t really tell if he’s unhappy,” she added later.
Liz and Ian agreed to talk to us because they want people to know the extent of what their family has been through over the past few years at Blue Ribbon.
Ian told us when he talks about Blue Ribbon with friends and colleagues, he calls it the “no-care home”.
He said: “There was no care really, was there?”
When Rohan first moved into Millbrook, Liz and Ian were initially hopeful. Rohan’s previously placements broke down, and they hoped this could be different.
But almost immediately, they had concerns.
“It looked like a prison,” Liz told us.
“It was dreary, it wasn’t pleasant,” Ian continued. “The building was crumbling”.
“The staff really worried me, the way they presented themselves” added Liz.
“There’s no other support. We didn’t want him to going, but we were told it was the only place available,” Ian said.
From the day Rohan moved in, Liz and Ian told us, his experience over two and a half years at Blue Ribbon was “appalling”.
“Rohan didn’t see any daylight for seven months,” Ian tells us.
“He was locked in without going outside and only seeing two carers at a time,” Liz explains.
“You’d get better conditions being in prison. At least you’d be able to go outside.”
Blue Ribbon told ITV News that any restrictions placed on Rohan were part of a “legally authorised” care plan.
Rohan was moved to a “slightly bigger” bungalow after seven months in a tiny flat but Liz and Ian say he continued to be neglected.
“He would lie on the mattress on the floor naked, because nobody encouraged him to put any clothes on,” Liz said.
“And apart from that he would go outside and walk around in circles in his garden. And that was it, that was his life. And what had he done to deserve that,” Liz recalled. “He just basically survived from day-to-day.”
Liz told us that carers were unable to communicate with Rohan, despite her best efforts to share her knowledge of her son.
“None of their carers had any specific training at all. They didn’t know any sign language, they didn’t know any Makaton. I offered to go down there and teach them sign language but they still didn’t know any signs,” she said.
Other family members whose relatives have lived at Blue Ribbon told ITV News that staff routinely failed to engage or effectively communicate with their vulnerable loved ones, sometimes even leaving them unattended.
Blue Ribbon told ITV News that the suggestion that carers couldn’t communicate with Rohan was false, and that staff received specialist training to care for people with complex needs. They said Liz provided bespoke guidance to help staff understand Rohan’s communication needs.
At times, Liz said she found her son in conditions she said were putting him in danger.
“It could be really dangerous,” she said, as she told us about what happened on one visit to Millbrook.
“One time we turned up, and Rohan was outside, he was naked and he was white with cold. His feet were bare on concrete in a puddle, and the puddle was the overflow from a blocked drain.”
Liz said she asked the two carers why Rohan had been left like this, and what was in the murky puddle his feet were in.
“They said that is where Rohan urinates and vomits,” she said. “So he has his feet in water that has urine, vomit and faeces floating around in it and he has open sores on his feet.”
Liz said her anxiety got worse with every weekly visit to her son, but there was no other care provider available.
On one visit in mid-January, Liz got a call to say that paramedics were at Rohan’s home because his toes had turned black, and he may have frostbite.
Liz questioned why Rohan had been outside without shoes on in winter for any period, let alone a period long enough for him to get frostbite.
Another time, Liz and Ian say they found Blue Ribbon staff emptying mop buckets, full of faeces and urine, into Rohan’s garden, which he would then walk around in bare feet, often with cuts.
“It was so bad, I was worried for his life, his mental health, his physical health, we just didn’t know what was going to happen next,” Liz recalls.
“They were happy to invoice the £12,500 a week, £650k a year [for Rohan’s care], and post those profits, but spend very little of it on Rohan,” Ian told us.
“They see the residents as a commodity, [it is] a very profit-driven company.”
Rohan now lives in a new care home in Preston, where he is happy and healthy.
But the couple say they want justice – for their family, and for Rohan. “It really is time some people are held accountable,” Ian said.
In a statement, Blue Ribbon CEO Charlotte Smith told ITV News: “I want to acknowledge the distress experienced by Ms Bailey and her family. Caring for a loved one with complex needs can be incredibly challenging, and families place enormous trust in those who support them.
“I am sorry that Ms Bailey feels we did not always meet her expectations or that she did not always feel heard. We never want a family member to feel unsupported when raising concerns about the care of someone they love.
“Throughout Mr Urrutia-Winship’s placement, we sought to maintain open and constructive communication with Ms Bailey regarding her son’s care and wellbeing. Ms Bailey was a frequent visitor to the service and regularly engaged with staff and the registered manager.
“She was involved in Best Interests meetings and care planning discussions, and on one occasion a senior manager visited her at home specifically in response to concerns she had raised.
“We recognise that these concerns come from a mother’s desire to ensure the best possible care for her son, and we respect the experiences that have shaped her views.”
Multiple people who worked for Blue Ribbon have told us Rohan’s experience was not an isolated one.
Shelley Gray joined Blue Ribbon in June 2025 as a Quality Improvement Manager. Her role was focused on overseeing the improvement of Blue Ribbon’s Supported Living services.
“I didn’t realise how bad it was, but unfortunately once you are in, you are in, and you think you can make it better. But there is no one place that can make that place better,” she told ITV News.
Shelley told us that in her first month at Blue Ribbon, she was given a briefing about some of the residents in the service.
She then learned that a senior staff member was on suspension for psychologically abusing and threatening to physically abuse a vulnerable Blue Ribbon resident they were supposed to be caring for. Shelley said she was informed that the staff member had worked with the resident for nearly four years prior to her suspension.
When she started visiting Blue Ribbon Supported Living services herself, she was shocked by what she found.
“There was that many investigations happening at one time, they didn’t have enough staff to do the investigations,” she said.
“They’re not minor things, it’s staff sleeping, physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse. Paperwork just screwed up in the corner and not even complemented.
“Filthy conditions, no wallpaper, holes in the walls, doors hanging off, clothes that don’t even fit people.”
Shelley told of one member of staff who was suspended for using cocaine on shift.
“There was cocaine use. One staff member who we eventually got rid of was using cocaine and was being quite aggressive,” she explained.
Blue Ribbon have confirmed to ITV News that as soon as concerns were raised in regard to that staff member they were investigated and their employment subsequently terminated.
Shelley was working at Blue Ribbon when staff at Willow Lodge, one of Blue Ribbon’s residential services, recorded a video of themselves “bench-pressing” and throwing a service user across the room.
Blue Ribbon acknowledged that this incident significantly below the standards of care, professionalism and respect that they expect. They told ITV News that several staff members involved were investigated and later dismissed.
In another incident, a resident emerged from his room with an ornamental samurai sword, and attempted to attack another resident, slicing a hole through a door. Blue Ribbon told us that no one was harmed, and that additional risk management measures were subsequently put in place.
“We weren’t sleeping at night. We’ve got children ourselves with a learning disability and just to think that you’ve got to work with those people, and they’ve got absolutely no values whatsoever,” she told ITV News.
“It was soul destroying.”
ITV News has learned of several other incidents involving the conduct of Blue Ribbon staff.
ITV News understands that two staff members were investigated for sexual abuse, after they encouraged a resident with learning disabilities to touch them inappropriately on the breast or buttocks.
Blue Ribbon told us that this incident was fully investigated, and appropriate action was taken accordingly.
Other former staff have told ITV News of their concerns over Blue Ribbon’s focus on securing the highest-paid care contracts with local councils and the NHS, which involve looking after residents with the most complex needs.
One former Blue Ribbon employee told us he believed Blue Ribbon took on too many of these lucrative contracts without the capability of caring for the resident because they were motivated by “profit”.
“It is about the money, and that’s all it comes down to,” he said.
Blue Ribbon told us they didn’t accept this characterisation, and that they only accept placements where they are satisfied they can safely meet an individual’s assessed needs.
The former employee has worked in care for 20 years, but said Blue Ribbon was “the worst of the worst”.
“I’ve worked in the industry for a long time and I’ve worked in challenging services before, but the injuries and the safeguardings that were raised were absolutely ridiculous. They were just constant, unexplained bruising.”
Some of the supported living accommodation, he told us, was “disgusting”.
“I wouldn’t even let my dog live in it,” he said.
“Local authorities, social workers, Learning Disability nurses – they are all concerned. Numerous have raised concerns with me when I was there,” he said.
When we asked he how they felt about the residents still living at Blue Ribbon, he broke down in tears, saying he still thinks about them.
In a statement , Blue Ribbon CEO Charlotte Smith said: “The safety, dignity and wellbeing of the people we support have always been, and will always remain, at the heart of everything we do. When concerns are raised about our services, we take them extremely seriously.
“We are committed to listening, learning and continually improving, and we have robust safeguarding, governance and quality assurance processes in place to ensure that concerns are thoroughly reviewed, appropriate action is taken and learning is embedded across our organisation”.
“We have carefully reviewed the wider concerns raised with us. Many do not reflect the information available to us or are presented without important clinical, regulatory or factual context.
“Other concerns relate to historic incidents that were thoroughly investigated at the time, with safeguarding procedures followed, relevant authorities and regulators notified where appropriate, and any necessary actions taken.”
“We remain proud of the care provided across our services and of the dedication shown every day by our colleagues in supporting people with complex needs to live safe, fulfilling and meaningful lives.
“Our services are independently regulated, and all services which have been inspected are currently rated Good or Outstanding by the Care Quality Commission.
“We remain committed to working openly and transparently with the people we support, their families, stakeholders and regulators, and to continually strengthening the quality of care and support we provide.”
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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