NHS trust admits failures after death of girl, 16

Ellame Ford-Dunn was found dead in the grounds of Worthing Hospital in March 2022

An NHS trust has admitted failing to provide safe care and treatment for a 16-year-old girl who took her own life on hospital grounds after running from her ward, a court has heard.

Ellame Ford-Dunn, 16, from Upper Beeding, West Sussex, died in the grounds of Worthing Hospital where she had been admitted as a mental health inpatient in March 2022.

University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust (UHST) pleaded guilty at Brighton Magistrates' Court on Monday to failing to provide safe care and treatment which exposed her to a significant risk of "avoidable harm".

Maggie Davies, chief nurse for the trust, said: "We had a responsibility to protect her while she was in our care."

The court heard how Ellame ran into the hospital grounds and was not immediately followed by a nurse due to "confusion" and a lack of appropriate procedure in place.

James Marsland, prosecuting for the Care Quality Commission (CQC), said: "The trust failed to provide safe care and treatment to Ellame by not doing everything that was reasonably practicable...

"Namely that there was no adequate guidance to staff to follow a patient seen to abscond from the ward."

The teenager had been under 24-hour one-to-one supervision by a registered mental health nurse on an acute ward when she absconded.

She was on that ward because there was "no alternative" and no adequate bed for her risk level was available, the court heard.

Ellame had suffered with severe mental health difficulties for some time prior to her stay at Worthing Hospital, the court heard.

The 16-year-old was an inpatient at Worthing Hospital

When Ellame ran, the nurse she was with did not immediately follow her, instead alerting other staff because she had been told on handover not to.

The CQC said that the confusion was "a symptom of the failure to have a policy directive that such vulnerable patients ought to be followed immediately", which has since been amended.

Ellame was found by police later that evening close to the edge of hospital grounds, and died despite CPR at the scene.

"They didn't have the resources or the skills to properly support Ellame but the alternative was refusing her," said Eleanor Sanderson, defending UHST.

Nancy Ford-Dunn Ellame's mother, said she was "loved so very deeply, we miss her more than words can express".

A statement from UHST read: "Ever since the death we have agreed that our missing person policy, and training around it, was not clear enough.

"We highlighted that, made improvements, and today we accepted the single charge relating to that policy."

Sentencing will take place on 26 November.

Additional reporting from PA Media.

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