Television reports of the plight of people with learning disabilities in squalid institutions in war-torn Ukraine have shocked viewers around the world.

As a result of the Russian invasion, many care workers have fled the country and family support networks have collapsed.

In the shadow of war more than 100,000 children and many adults with a wide range of disabilities are languishing in poorly maintained care homes. Patients stare vacantly from hospital beds, rocking their twisted bodies, banging their heads, chewing their limbs. Some are tied to chairs in filthy overcrowded wards.

Local and international relief agencies and charities have largely managed to provide food and water and other basics, but patients have experienced a marked deterioration in quality of life.

Ham & High: Mary Langan says the British can't complacent over the care of young people with learning disabilitiesMary Langan says the British can't complacent over the care of young people with learning disabilities (Image: Mary Langan)

Trapped in poorly maintained care homes, they evidently lack stimulation or meaningful activities. As Eric Rosenthal of Disability Rights International observes, a culture of neglect and abuse – even malnutrition – in these institutions long predates the current war. However the conflict with Russia is resolved, these conditions must be urgently addressed if Ukraine is to be admitted to the European Union.

British viewers have no excuse for complacency over Ukraine’s treatment of people with learning disabilities. Last month Tony Hickmott, a 45-year old man with autism was finally able to return home to Brighton after 21 years in institutional custody.

The authorities acknowledged "unacceptable delays" since he was judged "fit for discharge" nearly 10 years ago. Dubbed by one care worker as "the loneliest man in the hospital", he remained in conditions of "seclusion and segregation", his food passed through a hatch in the door of his cell.

The predicament of people with learning disabilities in Ukraine is now being taken up by the United Nations. In Britain the Care Quality Commission, which found a "failure to meet standards" in the case of Tony Hickmott, and other agencies, have much work to do.

More than a decade since the exposure of abuse and neglect at Winterbourne View, some 2,000 people remain in institutions which the government has promised to close.

Mary Langan is chair of the Severe and Complex Needs Reference Group.