An Oxfordshire woman is supporting a new campaign after she claims she was "left to rot" in a mental health hospital miles from home. 

Pam Bebbington has spoken about her support for a new campaign during Learning Disability Week, which ran from June 17 to June 23, to urgently improve support for people with a learning disability and autistic people to live in the community.

Ms Bebbington has a learning disability and was admitted to a mental health hospital in 1988 as a teenager. 

After spending two years in a secure unit in Berkshire, Pam was moved to a mental health hospital in Northamptonshire, further away from her mum and dad who lived in Witney, Oxfordshire. 

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The 54-year-old said “I wanted my family’s support but, because they lived so far away, I couldn't get it.

“It made me quite upset and very angry, hoping I'd get out eventually, not seeing my parents for quite a while. I wanted to get out of that hospital as soon as I could. 

“Your rights are taken away from you in hospital.

"Even the families that fight for their children or their adult children, it's hard going.

"I've seen some of the families and how hard it is when their children have died in hospital or something's happened to them.  

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“It wasn’t nice. It wasn’t a nice hospital. I felt betrayed, and I felt disgusted in how the staff were treating me. I wanted to get out, and I just didn't feel safe. I'd rather have been out in the community where I felt safer.” 

Ms Bebbington is backing voice and rights charity VoiceAbility’s Use Your Power campaign, which is calling on all UK political parties to commit to using the Secretary of State’s new powers to direct NHS England to urgently improve support for people with a learning disability and autistic people to live in the community and reduce detention in mental health hospitals.   

There are currently more than 2,000 people with a learning disability and autistic people being detained in mental health hospitals in England, with the average stay lasting approximately five years.

Ms Bebbington added: “We were just left there to rot, really, that’s how I’d class it.

“They don’t understand you, just ignore you, don't listen to you.

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“I think they should close the main hospitals and let people live in the community with the right support.

"Because they've just been abused and beaten up, and it's just not fair on them. I want to fight it, and we've been fighting it for years.  

“I want to make sure everyone's got the right to have their own choices, their own places to live, their own support that they want, not the support that they're given."

As part of the campaign, Pam has featured in a new film where those affected by hospital detention have spoken about their experiences.   

Jonathan Senker, VoiceAbility’s chief executive, said: "Stories like Pam’s shine a light on this hidden scandal.

"What we need is the political will and accountability at the highest level to make a sustained difference across the whole country."