A teenage patient who died while under the care of a mental health service had previously complained of staff treating her 'like dirt', an inquest has been told. Emily Moore, from Shildon, was found unconscious at Durham's Lanchester Road Hospital in February 2020, shortly after her 18th birthday, and passed away two days later. Both Lanchester Road Hospital and West Lane Hospital in Middlesbrough, where Emily had previously been a patient, were operated by Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust (TEWV).
The inquest, being held before a jury in Crook, heard that Emily began self-harming and attempting suicide at the age of 15 in 2017. Following ineffective community-based treatment and due to the significant risk she posed to herself, Emily was admitted against her will to the 14-bed Newberry Centre at West Lane in March 2019. Her consultant psychiatrist, Dr Melanie Willetts, informed jurors that Emily was given a working diagnosis of emotionally unstable personality disorder (EUPD).
Emily was moved to the more secure Ferndene in Prudhoe, run by Cumbria, Northumberland Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust, after the Care Quality Commission (CQC) ordered the closure of West Lane Hospital in August 2019, following the deaths of two patients. After this move, Emily wrote a letter detailing her negative experiences at the Newberry ward, describing it as 'understaffed'. She claimed that instead of 'showing compassion' after self-harm incidents, staff would 'swear' at her and say 'not again, this is getting a joke now'. Emily also stated she was 'constantly told to 'pack it in'' and 'spoken to like dirt', with staff suggesting she was 'just looking for attention' and 'obviously liked being this way'. She further alleged that staff would return items she had used to harm herself and often failed to intervene during self-harming episodes, reportedly waiting for her to exhaust herself.
Dr Willetts, giving evidence via videolink, acknowledged that Emily's account did 'not surprise' her, though she could not confirm its '100%' accuracy. She suggested that while staff were 'well intended' and performed 'compassionate work', issues such as 'compassion fatigue' and 'staffing issues' were present. Dr Willetts stated that subsequent investigations uncovered multiple failings at West Lane Hospital and in Emily's care, conceding that the criticism was 'fair'. She highlighted a 'definite decline' in standards between mid-2018 and the hospital's closure in 2019, attributing this to factors including the non-replacement of a vital psychologist, an increase in admissions of more 'distressed' and complex young people, and the suspension of a 'big cohort' of staff from another ward amid allegations of inappropriate restraints, which led to anxiety and low morale.
Further issues cited by Dr Willetts included a reliance on 'bank staff' who were 'thrown in the deep end', a 'misunderstanding' and 'loss of common sense' regarding risk management, exemplified by young people being given back items they had used to self-harm, and both staff and young patients being 'traumatised' by their experiences. This testimony paints a concerning picture of the environment within the mental health facility during Emily's time there.