Promise to improve trust after teenage triple suicide tragedy
THE Government has apologised and is considering a public inquiry after three teenagers took their lives after “multifaceted” failures in mental health care.
Health minister Maria Caulfield said the probe into the deaths of Christie Harnett, Nadia Sharif, both 17, and Emily Moore, 18, made for “painful reading” and described the incidents as “unacceptable”.
She told MPs a decision will be taken in the coming days on the next steps, with a need to make sure the “same failings” are not happening elsewhere.
Christie, Nadia and Emily were diagnosed with complex mental health needs and had been patients at West Lane Hospital in Middlesbrough.
The hospital, run by Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust, is where Christie, from Slough, and Nadia, from Middlesbrough, died. Emily, from County Durham, died in Lanchester Road Hospital, Durham, in an adult ward where she was moved to from West Lane Hospital just 11 days before.
The three girls took their own lives between June 2019 and February 2020. Ms Caulfield told the House of Commons: “I want to apologise for the failings in the care that they received.” Ms Caulfield said she and Health Secretary Steve Barclay, are “working closely” with NHS England and the Care Quality Commission over the improvements being made by the trust.
Ms Caulfield highlighted “other recent scandals” in mental health care, adding: “I am not satisfied the failings we’ve heard about today are necessarily isolated incidents.”
Shadow mental health minister Dr Rosena Allin-Khan earlier asked the Government to conduct a “rapid review” and warned: “Patients are dying, being bullied, dehumanised, abused and their medical records are being falsified – a scandalous breach of patient safety.
“The Government has failed to learn from past failings.”