UNSAFE: celebrity rehab clinic with a spate of suicides
BRITAIN’S leading rehab clinic The Priory has been branded ‘unsafe’ in a devastating report by an official watchdog, following a series of suicides and self-harming incidents by patients.
In the most recent case, millionaire company chairman Stephen Bantoft, 49, is understood to have hanged himself less than three hours after checking into an acute psychiatric wing at the hospital.
The father of three had not been seen by a doctor.
His death was one of two suicides in the hospital last year, and one of ten ‘serious incidents of self-harm’ involving ligatures in the three months prior to March.
Following Mr Bantoft’s death last December, the West Wing of the hospital in Roehampton, south-west London, was closed for two weeks for urgent modifications.
But even after reopening, an inspection by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) found that the hospital, which has treated celebrities including Kate Moss, Amy Winehouse and Robbie Williams, was littered with hazards for vulnerable patients.
A family friend told The Mail on Sunday that Mr Bantoft’s wife Lucinda has taken her husband to The Priory last December after he was referred by a psychiatrist.
He was admitted to a room on the West Wing, where she stayed with him for about two hours.
The friend said: ‘Throughout that time, he was given no medication and wasn’t even seen by a doctor. But Lucinda had to leave him to get back to her children, and made sure staff on duty knew what to look out for before she left. He was dead within about half an hour.’
Mr Bantoft is the fourth apparent suicide in a Priory Group facility in as many years, and was the second at the Roehampton flagship hospital in 2015. An inquest into his death is due to be held later this year.
The catalogue of faults highlighted in the CQC’s new 40-page report deals a blow to the group, which charges private patients £6,800 a week before treatments. Among the problems cited were:
Reliance on temporary staff, with up to 51 per cent used in one wing at nights;
Old buildings with long corridors and blind spots, often on several levels, making supervision difficult;
Potential ‘ligature anchors’ in many places, including in the dimly lit garden, to which patients had unrestricted access;
Evidence of same-sex ward rules being breached with men in rooms on female wards and vice versa.
The Priory Group boasts a £520 million turnover, 85 per cent of which
comes from the NHS and local authorities, with operat- ing profits of £74million in 2014.
Under the ‘safety’ criteria, the CQC report judges The Priory’s acute wards for adults of working age and psychiatric intensive care unit services ‘inadequate’ – the worst possible rating. Overall, in four out of five criteria, the hospital was found to ‘require improvement’.
The report adds: ‘The layout of the hospital and the wards made it very hard for staff to observe patients who were at risk of self-harm. There were ligature risks throughout the hospital. There were a high number of incidents in the last year involving ligatures.’
Mr Bantoft, from Clapham, SouthWest London, was chairman and founder of property development firm Cannock Group. Paying tribute to her husband on Facebook, Mrs Bantoft wrote: ‘We all loved you, but we couldn’t save you... we will never forget your presence in our lives.’
A hospital spokesman said: ‘We take this report extremely seriously, and are already delivering a significant programme of investment to improve the physical environment, alongside a further £500,000 to address the concerns raised by the CQC.’