Mitchell Review and Scope response

In May 2024, Scope commissioned an independent review of our service delivery, practices and responses to a historic case involving the provision of services and supports to Lee-Anne Mackey.

The need for the work arose, in part, as a result of complaints received by Lee-Anne and her family and a video substantiating abusive treatment of Lee-Anne, which aired on a 60 Minutes program in April 2024.

As an organisation that supports thousands of Australians with disabilities, Scope has zero tolerance for abuse, neglect, or inappropriate conduct. We are devastated by this incident and deeply regret the distress caused to Lee-Anne and her family.

We are committed to transparency and have worked to fully understand what went wrong, learn from it, and improve our systems and processes to ensure the safety of all our clients.

In May 2024, we engaged Megan Mitchell AO to conduct an independent review of Lee-Anne's care and identify improvements in client safeguarding, complaint handling, and response to critical incidents. Ms Mitchell's review found multiple factors that contributed to the compromised care of Lee-Anne, including leadership and cultural issues, insufficient skills to manage client complexity as health needs change, and the impact of COVID on regular oversight, meaningful activities and therapeutic support.

Ms Mitchell also recognised that the actions of the staff involved do not represent the vast majority of staff at Scope and commended the care and commitment of our staff to providing support and care for our clients.

While Ms Mitchell recognised that many of our policies and procedures have already been updated, further improvements were recommended in areas such as training, oversight, communication, and staff-family engagement.

In total, Ms Mitchell made 49 recommendations, all of which have been accepted by Scope.

We have already implemented actions designed to improve communications and transparency, measure client experience, and embed the voice of clients and families/supporters in program decisions and design.

Other actions we are undertaking that respond to these recommendations include:

• Transforming our operational structure
• Strengthening management presence and oversight in our houses
• Improving recruitment processes and expanding staff training
• Moving to a single digital client management system
• Creating a culture of safety across Scope.

We acknowledge that there is still work to do and remain fully committed to continuous improvement in the safety and wellbeing of people with disabilities across every aspect of service, support and care provided by Scope.

We thank Ms Mitchell for her thorough review and recommendations, and we will continue to address the issues that led to Lee-Anne’s experience. Regular updates on our efforts to improve the quality, safety, and experience of our clients will be provided through our Supporter Circle newsletter, on our website, and through our various client and family/supporter forums.

You can read the Policy and Practice Review – Lee-Anne Mackey as well as the Scope Response to the review on our website.