NHS staff ‘closed and locked door on dying mental health patient’

NHS staff “closed and locked the door” on a dying mental health patient, an inquiry has heard.

The claim was made on the first day of the Lampard Inquiry into the deaths of mental health inpatients under the care of NHS trusts in Essex between Jan 1 2000 and Dec 31 last year.

It is the biggest ever inquiry into NHS mental health services and is expected to look at the deaths of thousands of people.

In her opening statement on Monday, Baroness Lampard, the chairman, said the inquiry would investigate “alleged failings in mental health care on a scale that is deeply shocking”.

Hodge Jones & Allen solicitors, representing 126 patients and families, said the NHS trusts in Essex, referred to as the Essex trusts during the inquiry, had “fallen appreciably below acceptable standards” and had failed to learn from mistakes.

Steven Snowden KC, who spoke for the law firm, said some incidents went beyond “negligence and inadvertence” and stemmed from “a lack of humanity, empathy and ethics”.

Mr Snowden said: “An inquest jury found that two groups of staff claimed to have unlocked a door behind which another patient was dying.

“[The jury] concluded that both groups were correct, the horrifying implication being that the first group had simply closed and locked the door after they found the patient dying.”

In a separate example, he claimed a nurse employed by the Essex trusts had reacted to a patient’s death by saying “he was just a drunk anyway”, and had previously said words to the effect of “if I ever get like that [patient], I want to go to Switzerland”.

The nurse and two others were later found to have attempted a “cover-up” by manufacturing a patient’s care plan after his death, he added.

Mr Snowden also claimed that “sexual abuse was perpetrated on an inpatient and/or complaints about sexual abuse were not appropriately followed up” at the Essex trusts.

Statutory status

The Essex Mental Health Independent Inquiry was established in 2021 without statutory status.

It was upgraded to statutory footing last year, which means it has legal powers to compel witnesses to give evidence.

This came after it emerged that just 11 members of staff out of 14,000 contacted by the inquiry said they would attend an evidence session.

Lady Lampard said the number of deaths being investigated by the inquiry would be “significantly in excess” of the 2,000 that were previously being considered.

She said: “I do not, at this stage, have a number of deaths in scope to share with you. The tragedy is that we may never have a definitive number of deaths that fall within this inquiry’s remit.”

The figure will include people who died within three months of discharge, and those who died as inpatients receiving NHS-funded care in the independent sector.

Bereaved families demonstrate

Lady Lampard, who led the investigation into abuse in the NHS by Jimmy Savile, held a minute’s silence and expressed her “deepest sympathy” to friends and families of the dead, some of them sitting in the front rows of the inquiry.

A group of bereaved family members gathered outside the Chelmsford Civic Centre from 8am, waiting in the cold for three hours before the inquiry started.

They held a dozen or so placards, each with a picture of someone who had died and text saying “failed by the state”.

Melanie Leahy, whose 20-year-old son Matthew died in November 2012 while a patient at the Linden Centre in Chelmsford, had long campaigned for a public inquiry.

She said: “It’s such a long overdue inquiry and it’s become a crucial investigation which really is now a beacon of hope for so many people.”

The Telegraph revealed last week that Nadine Dorries, a former health minister, had tried to “isolate” Ms Leahy as she attempted to block a full public inquiry.

In her own defence, Ms Dorries said that it was “not appropriate for former ministers to discuss private conversations but there were a range of opinions by the families of those affected and I listened to all of them”.

The inquiry will hear from family members for the first time on Sept 16.