Popular teacher was discharged from hospital two weeks before being found dead
A POPULAR teacher was discharged from hospital a fortnight before she was found dead at a beauty spot, a pre-inquest review has heard.
A coroner will look at the preparations made before 43-year-old Sian Elin Boyle, from Cardiff, left the hospital following mental health treatment.
Mrs Boyle, known as Elin and a well-liked teacher at Ysgol Gyfun Gymraeg Plasmawr, had been reported missing after leaving her home in Danescourt on March 12 this year.
Her body was found five days later after police were called to Nash Point in the Vale of Glamorgan.
The hearing at Pontypridd Coroners’ Court yesterday was told she had been receiving treatment for her mental health in the months before her death and she had been admitted to Hafan y Coed, the adult mental health unit at University Hospital Llandough, earlier in the year. She was discharged on February 28.
Assistant coroner SarahJayne Richards told the hearing she would be looking at the specific preparations which had been made prior to Mrs Boyle’s discharge from hospital.
Ms Richards told the court that while the medical team, including consultant psychiatrists and community psychiatric nurses, had been working towards “a well-established discharge date”, she would be considering whether Mrs Boyle had shown any “red-flag symptoms in terms of discharge”.
“It’s not just ‘were the preparations made?’ but ‘did those individuals receive timely notification?’,” added Ms Richards.
Ms Richards acknowledged that while she thought Mrs Boyle’s discharge from hospital had been “reasonable”, it was the family’s view that she should not have been discharged.
Mrs Boyle’s husband Jonathan and her sister Anwen Charles attended the hearing, represented by their solicitor Carys Davies from Harding Evans.
Gaynor Kynaston, representing the Cardiff and Vale University Health Board, told the hearing the health board had undertaken its own investigation into the treatment received by Mrs Boyle.
The subsequent 170page report was “quite a lengthy and comprehensive document”, she said, and had asked a “considerable list of questions for the health board to answer”.
The final report will be made available to the coroner in the next 28 days, Mrs Kynaston confirmed.
Mrs Boyle had a history of mental health concerns and had received treatment from the community psychiatric nurse at her local GP surgery in Danescourt, as well as from the North Cardiff Crisis Resolution and Home Treatment Team.
After her death, Mrs Boyle’s family issued a tribute describing how she had struggled with her mental health for more than half her lifetime. They said: “We cannot begin to describe how painful it is to have your loved one taken from you by this cruel mental health illness which Elin had to battle with for over 25 years.
“She really was one in a million and we only wish she could have seen the love for her pouring in.
“She had a gift of making others feel better and happy and would go above and beyond to help others. Our only consolation is that she is now at peace.”
Ms Richards confirmed that the family of Mrs Boyle and Cardiff and Vale University Health Board would be the only interested parties at the inquest conclusion.
She also said she would hold a second pre-inquest review after the list of agreed witnesses had been confirmed, after which she would set a date for the conclusion.
This would likely be next year, she said.