June 13 attacks show the ‘tragic consequences’ of mental health failings – Labour
BARNABY WEBBER’S PARENTS AT CELEBRATION
LABOUR’S health spokesman says the Nottingham attacks show the “tragic consequences” of failing to manage people with severe mental ill health.
Shadow health secretary Wes Streeting, MP for the area where victim Grace O’malley-kumar’s family live, says addressing failures in mental health services was a “priority” for Labour if they form the next government.
Mr Streeting was on a visit with Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer to King’s Mill Hospital in Sutton yesterday, announcing that the party would digitise the red book so that children’s health records would be on the NHS app.
The visit came less than a fortnight after a review was published into Nottinghamshire’s mental health services.
The special review was ordered into Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust (NHFT) by the Government after concerns were raised over the trust’s care of Valdo Calocane, who killed Barnaby Webber, Grace O’malley-kumar and Ian Coates on June 13 last year.
The investigation, by the Care Quality Commission (CQC), looked at patient safety and the quality of care provided by the trust.
The second half, expected to be published this summer, will examine the care Calocane received at the trust.
The CQC found that mental health patients and members of the public were being put at risk of harm due to poor access to care in Nottinghamshire. The watchdog said high demand and staffing shortages meant patients were not always being kept safe.
Speaking about the review, Mr Streeting told the Post: “We’ve got a really serious challenge with mental ill-health in our country. I think particularly for young people, we’ve got mental health services in desperately short supply.
“A&E departments are often filled with police officers accompanying people with mental ill-health who have nowhere else to go and, of course, with the Nottingham [attacks]... there you see the really tragic consequences of what happens not just when a criminal is let loose, but where there are serious failures in the management of people with severe mental health.”
In terms of Labour’s plans for mental health services, Mr Streeting said the party would ensure there was mental health support in every school and mental health hubs in every community. Mr Streeting also said the party would recruit an extra 8,500 mental health support workers.
The shadow health secretary added: “There are clearly longerterm reforms that will be necessary. Those are the first steps of what will be a decade of investment and reform so that we’ve got the mental health services that people deserve.”
THE families of the victims of the Nottingham attacks gathered in an emotional show of strength and unity to celebrate the wedding of James Coates.
James – son of Ian, the school caretaker who was fatally stabbed in the attacks last June – shared a poignant picture of himself and his wife with Emma and David Webber, parents of Barnaby, the 19-year-old University of Nottingham student also killed by Valdo Calocane.
James, 38, and his wife invited both the Webbers and the O’malleykumars to the wedding. The three families share a close bond after the tragic events of last year.
It is understood that the O’malleykumars, parents of Grace, who was also killed in the attacks, were unable to attend due to a prior engagement.
In the photo, which James gave the Post permission to share, he is wearing a stylish blue suit and a boutonnière with white flowers,
while his wife looked beautiful in a white wedding dress with floral detailing. David wears a grey suit, with Emma in a deep blue dress.
Father-of-three Ian, 65, a caretaker at Huntingdon Academy, was fatally stabbed in Magdala Road, Mapperley Park, in the early hours of June 13, after Calocane attacked students Barnaby and Grace as they walked home from an end-of-term night out in Ilkeston Road, Radford.
Nottinghamshire Police are currently being investigated by police watchdog the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) for their handling of the investigation into Calocane’s crimes, their previous interactions with the killer and their failure to catch him during a ninemonth period when he was subject to an arrest warrant.
The IOPC is also investigating Leicestershire Police’s contact with Calocane before the killing spree. After the sentencing of Calocane to an indefinite hospital order after he admitted manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility, the Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate carried out a review of the Crown Prosecution Service’s work.
It found that the CPS complied with the law and met its obligations, but acknowledged that the victims’ families could have been better supported.
A special review was also ordered by the Government into the Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, carried out by the Care Quality Commission.
Patient safety and the quality of care provided by the trust has been examined in the first half, and the second half of the review will examine the care received by Calocane.