'She would still be here today if we had been listened to'

Outside a family home in Bolton funeral flowers remain next to a wooden memorial. Nevaeh Owen died on March 14, this year, aged 18.

The pain of loss is raw in the cracked voice of her mother, Lynda. Her daughter is the latest teenager to die while in the care of Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust, which is currently rated inadequate by inspectors.

As previously reported in the Manchester Evening News, three young people died within nine months at the Prestwich site of the Trust. Rowan Thompson, 18, died in October 2020 followed by Charlie Millers, 17, in December 2020 and Ania Sohail, 21, in June 2021.

In October 2022, a jury at Rowan's inquest concluded that the lack of timely communication on Rowan's blood test results contributed to their death. They also ruled that this amounted to 'neglect' - meaning 'a gross failure to provide basic medical care' as a result of the failure.

Coroner, Joanne Kearsley, consequently issued a 'regulation 28' report to the Trust in a bid to prevent further deaths, highlighting concerns raised by the case.

This week the inquest of Charlie Millers' ended and a jury determined that a lack of one-to-one, constant nursing care likely 'contributed to his death' and that Greater Manchester Mental Health Trust's observation system, where staff checked on Charlie during his stays on wards, including at the time he was fatally injured, was 'not robust enough' and undertaken 'inconsistently at best'.

In August this year a pre-inquest review will be held into Nevaeh's death.

Lynda believes the Trust has questions to answer regarding her treatment. She claims she repeatedly asked for Neveah to be transferred from the ward she died on.

She has described how Nevaeh declined from being a normal teenager into a spiral of mental illness she could not break free from.

"She was emotional but what teenagers aren't. From what we have been told there was always underlying issues but lockdown brought things to the surface. She found it really difficult being stuck in the house, and her confidence went," Lynda said.

Nevaeh attended mainstream school in Bolton, where the family moved to in 2019, from Stretford, Manchester. The first sign that something was wrong was when Nevaeh began to self harm at school using the blade of a pencil sharpener. She later took an overdose, was placed in an induced coma and spent ten days in an intensive care unit.

Aged 15 she was sectioned and placed in an adolescent mental health unit run by the Trust within the Cheadle Royal Hospital complex in 2021. She later moved to the Trust's Junction 17 unit, on its Prestwich site, in January 2023.

"She spent the best part of two years in these two units but would come home on leave for part of a day - she would love coming home," said Lynda.

A video of Nevaeh on her 18th birthday, on September 25 last year, shows her opening cards with her family while at the Junction 17 unit in Prestwich. She cries with joy and is hugged by her grandmother as she realises her present is a trip to New York.