‘We are failing young people’ says coroner
The suicide of teenager Robyn Skilton has flagged ‘gross failures’ in youth mental health provision
‘Mental health services failed Robyn as they didn’t recognise the deterioration of her mental health’
A SENIOR coroner has said we are “failing” our young people after a teenage girl was denied face-to-face appointments before she killed herself during lockdown.
Penelope Schofield warned there is a “clear risk” that young people will succumb to mental illness if urgent action is not taken and she said she is writing to Sajid Javid, the Health Secretary.
The coroner concluded that Robyn Skilton, 14, killed herself after being let down by “gross failures” in the NHS.
The failures were so severe in the case of the suicidal teenager – who was continually turned down for assessments -– that Ms Schofield ruled the NHS was guilty of “neglect”.
Robyn, from Horsham in West Sussex, disappeared from her £670,000 family home and hanged herself in a park on May 7 last year, having a long history of self-harming and expressing a desire to take her own life.
At that time, England was in step two of the Government’s route map out of lockdown and no indoor mixing between households was allowed.
Despite “real serious concerns” about her mental health, Robyn did not get face-to-face consultations, was not seen by a child psychiatrist or assessed for mental health issues, and was discharged from a NHS service a month before her suicide despite being on its high-risk “red list”. She was referred to a council support programme but was kept on a waiting list for a one-to-one consultation for 10 months. Eventually, when she had a consultation, it was only a remote session.
Robyn’s father, Alan Skilton, a software company director, constantly pleaded with authorities for help. He told his daughter’s inquest the lack of care she received was “astonishing”.
Ms Schofield announced she will now be writing a report to the Government following the hearing. “As a society we are failing young people,” Ms Schofield warned.
She said she was “shocked” to hear evidence during the two day-long hearing that the number of young people seeking mental health help has increased 95 per cent in recent times.
She said: “Trying to manage it without more resources means we are not providing the help that young people need. Robyn’s case is a testament to that. It’s a clear risk that more lives will be lost if we don’t address it.
“Therefore, I will be writing a Prevention of Future Deaths report to the Secretary of State for Health to address these concerns.”
Ms Schofield ruled there were “gross failures” by Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust in Robyn’s case and the Trust’s Sussex Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS).
She said: “I do appreciate the landscape the Trust was working in as Covid-19 heightened the level of complexity, but there were many failings in the care provided to Robyn.
“The totality of these failures, in my mind, means I must reach a conclusion of neglect. There was a gross failure to provide care for someone in a dependant state.
“Mental health services failed Robyn as they didn’t recognise the deterioration of her mental health, nor provide her with the care she required. Her death was also contributed to by neglect.”
Dr Alison Wallis, the Trust’s clinical director for children’s services, tearfully told Robyn’s parents “you didn’t get the service you deserved” and that Covid impacted their care.
Solicitor Rebecca Agnew, from Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, admitted “CAMHS didn’t assess Robyn appropriately, leading to missed opportunities for her escalating needs”.
Sussex NHS Trust has started implementing large changes to its mental health services and Ms Schofield will reconvene the inquest in three months to assess them.