NHS trust and manager failed young woman who killed herself

Telegraph

3 days ago

An NHS trust and manager failed a young woman who took her own life at a mental health unit, a court found.
Alice Figueiredo, 22, had made more than 10 attempts at self-harm before she died at Goodmayes Hospital in Redbridge, east London, on July 7 2015.
Staff repeatedly failed to remove plastic items she had used to harm herself from the communal lavatories.
After a seven month trial at the Old Bailey, the ward manager Benjamin Aninakwa, 53 was found guilty of failing to take reasonable care for the health and safety of patients.
Jurors also found North East London NHS Foundation Trust (NELFT) – the trust which runs Goodmayes Hospital – guilty of 'failing to ensure the safety of a non-employee'.
NELFT was cleared of corporate manslaughter – in only the second case that an NHS trust had faced the charge – and Aninakwa was found not guilty of manslaughter by gross negligence.
'You are not above the law'
Ms Figueiredo's mother, Jane Figueiredo, said after the verdicts that patients would 'continue to come to serious, avoidable harm' if 'radical changes' were not made.
She said: 'We truly hope the fact NELFT (North East London NHS Foundation Trust) has been through a trial of over seven months and convicted of a serious health and safety criminal offence at the Old Bailey will send a very strong message to mental health providers and their staff across this country: You are not unassailable.
'You are not above the law. You need to do far, far better to stop failing those people you have a duty of care to.
'If you don't make radical changes in your conduct and attitudes towards the people you have a responsibility to care for and keep safe, then people like Alice will continue to come to serious, avoidable harm, or senselessly lose their lives.
'This is happening with impunity, time and again, behind the locked doors of wards and in the community across the country.'
Ms Figueiredo was first admitted to the hospital's Hepworth Ward in May 2012 with a diagnosis including non-specific eating disorder and bipolar affective disorder, jurors heard.
During her time on the acute psychiatric ward, the trust failed to remove plastic items from the communal toilets or keep them locked, even though she repeatedly used the items to try to kill herself.
She had used plastic from the toilets to self-harm on at least 10 previous occasions, but the court heard of eight more incidents involving similar materials before Ms Figueiredo took her own life.
The suicide attempts were recorded in ward notes and other hospital records.
Ward manager on improvement plan
Jurors heard that Aninakwa, from Grays in Essex, who was subject to a performance improvement plan, had failed to remove plastic that could be used for self-harm and failed to ensure incidents of self-harm were recorded.
Aninakwa and the trust had denied wrongdoing but declined to give evidence.
As she paid tribute to her daughter after the trial, Jane Figueiredo said,: 'Alice's light and life shone so brightly, and everyone who knew and loved her has lived the last decade devastated by the immeasurable loss of her luminous, kind, thoughtful, generous, warm, humorous and deeply loving presence, always feeling her absence at every occasion and in our everyday lives, nothing, including these verdicts, will ever bring her back to us, and we will never stop thinking of her and missing her.'
Detective Inspector Jonathan Potter, who led the investigation into Ms Figueiredo's case, said: 'This was a complex investigation led by the Metropolitan Police Service, into a unique case that has led to the conviction of the Trust and Benjamin Aninakwa for health and safety offences.
'While there are thousands of NHS workers that do a commendable job every day, today's result must also ensure that lessons are learnt to stop the same mistakes happening again.'
Priya Singh, a partner at Hodge Jones and Allen advised that Ms Figueiredo's case now be included as a core participant in the Lampard Inquiry – a statutory investigation into deaths of more than 2,000 people at NHS-run inpatient units in Essex between 2000 and 2023.
Ms Singh added: 'The outcome of the trial will be of disappointment to many families failed by mental health services and we can only hope that this trial will lead to a great deal of reflection on the part of those involved to ensure that cases like this do not reappear.'