CARERS allowed a man with severe learning difficulties to escape from his residential care home, a BBC investigation found.

Worried parents have raised serious concerns over care provider Discovery, which is paid tens of millions of pounds of tax payers’ money to provide care for adults with learning difficulties in Somerset.

In a BBC Inside Out West documentary due to air on Monday, one mum claimed the company was “falling apart” after her son ended up in A&E while another mum said she was left terrified when her son was found outside on his own.

Discovery said it was working to redress a temporary reliance on agency staff and that “any issues raised with us are immediately and robustly investigated”.

Pat Durbin’s son, Steven, is 45 and has Angelman’s Syndrome, a rare condition which means he cannot do everyday tasks, such as dress himself and go to the toilet.

On one occasion when left unsupervised he filled his own bath and got in it.

On another, he escaped.

Ms Durbin, from Taunton, told the BBC: “He has no road sense whatsoever, he actually walked out of the home and was trying to get on one of the buses because he wanted to go out somewhere. That is terrifying as a mother, he could have wandered off anywhere.”

The Bridgwater–based company has been providing social care in the county for two years. Last year it was paid £37 million by Somerset County Council.

Steven is spending more time indoors, mostly watching television, since Discovery took over, Ms Durbin said.

Sarah Moore, whose 25-year-old son Marcus has severe autism, told the BBC Inside Out West documentary that the council care used to be “phenomenal”, but had deteriorated since Discovery took over.

“We were reassured by them that everything was going to be wonderful,” she said. “And in that time they managed to lose every single member of staff. It’s just got worse and worse, it’s falling apart.”

Marcus is diabetic and ended up in hospital with a serious condition caused by a lack of insulin.

“It can cause the shutdown of vital organs and can actually cause death,” Ms Moore explained. “What caused him to be in hospital we don’t know. It could be that somebody had forgotten to give him his insulin, but we don’t know that.

His dad, Mr Moore added: “But the fact that they’d completely failed to contact us all day was enough for us to raise a safeguarding issue and to remove him completely from their care. We were not happy that it was safe, there was no one there that we knew or trusted.

“These are vulnerable people right across the service right across Somerset who haven’t necessarily got a voice or haven’t necessarily got parents fighting for them or worried about them or people that even care about them. That’s really frightening that those people are being let down right across the service.”

The Moores are from North Petherton, near Bridgwater.

Discovery took over the care of around 900 adults with learning disabilities in Somerset.

A spokesperson for the company told the BBC: “We take the safety of all those in our care extremely seriously and any issues raised with us are immediately and robustly investigated.

“We have made some big changes to the way support in Somerset is run.

“We are now focused on building on this change and providing a high standard of support for all those who rely on us.”

The Inside Out West documentary will air on BBC Once West on Monday night at 7.30pm and will be available on iPlayer afterwards.