NHS trusts make payout to widow of bridge suicide
The widow of a mentally ill man who threw himself off a motorway bridge after being turned away by medical staff five times in one day has won a payout from two health trusts.
Peter Franklin, of Riverside Park, East Farleigh, died after jumping from the crossing at Junction 5 (Aylesford) of the M20 four years ago.
It later transpired the 67-yearold went to Maidstone Hospital five times on the day of his death. On one occasion he was taken there by a taxi driver who had stopped him jumping from the same bridge where he later died.
In that instance, Kent and Medway NHS and Social Care Partnership Trust (KMPT) nurse Christine Watts phoned his daughter to pick him up and said he would be arrested if he returned. She also failed to flag him as a suicide risk or record the encounter properly.
She was handed a two-year condition of practice order last year after a Nursing and Midwifery Council panel heard she felt it was unfair to make Mr Franklin wait to see her.
An inquest into the death of Mr Franklin, who was suffering from heightened anxiety, heard he made four trips to Maidstone Hospital complaining of problems swallowing – including being taken by police to the specialist mental health unit Priority House next door.
Now Mr Franklin’s widow Lynne, 60, now of Hadley Close, Meopham, has won an undisclosed payout from KMPT and Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust (MTW), which runs the hospital in Hermitage Lane.
Nick Fairweather, who represented Mrs Franklin, said issues like those in Mr Franklin’s case are recurrent yet easy to address through better communication between mental health and acute trusts.
An MTW spokesman said: “We have actively fostered closer working relationships with our partner healthcare organisations and make every effort possible to ensure our processes of communication with them are robust, thorough and effective.”
A KMPT spokesman said: “We improved processes that address the identification and management of risk.”