THERE cannot be a party leader or politician in the land who would disagree with the principle that the mark of a good, strong society is the way it cares for its more vulnerable members.

So why is it that we in this country come up short on so many occasions in this department?

All due respect to the many dedicated, compassionate individuals who work so hard looking after the those with physical and mental disabilities, but there have been too many systemic failings for comfort in recent years.

The latest, at Slade House in Headington, is a classic case. Poor care, poor procedures and poor facilities have all been damned in a report by the watchdog Care Quality Commission.

In response, the body responsible, Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust, appears surprised by the scandal, as if it had nothing to do with them.

There then follows the usual platitudes: lessons learned, procedures reviewed, new working practices and so on. And on..

However it appears management at the trust have effectively been asleep at the wheel. It is just not good enough.

Of course, we have come a long way from the truly dark ages, when anyone who was considered ‘not right’ was simply lobbed into an asylum. But not far enough, it seems, by 21st century standards in a modern, affluent western democracy.

The professionals at the sharp end are overworked, underpaid and in mahy cases understaffed. Some, frankly, should not be allowed anywhere near the job, given the depressing number of scandals that have come to light nationally.

The administrators, and there are still lots of them, have shrinking budgets to wrestle with and when they ‘prioritise’, it is clear that the vulnerable are some way off the top of the pecking order. And politicians? They utter fine words, but with a few exceptions, most of them are weasel ones.

A cynic would say there aren’t many votes to be had in this particualr area.

And the cynic might well be right.