Southern Health: Bereaved families' anger 'has to be addressed'

The families of (l-r) David West, Robert Small, Marion Munns, Edward Hartley and Jo Deering want better patient safety

The chairman of a panel investigating an NHS trust over patient deaths said the anger of bereaved families was "palpable" and "had to be addressed".

The panel is investigating Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust after failures in its care of five patients who died between 2011 and 2015.

Nigel Pascoe QC said the probe would be carried out "without fear or favour".

The deputy director of nursing at the trust said it had "really shifted and changed" in how it addressed problems.

The hearings follow a report by Mr Pascoe which found "serious and deeply regrettable failures" by Southern Health, one of the biggest psychiatric trusts in England.

The report, published in February last year, found the trust acted with "disturbing insensitivity and a serious lack of proper communication" to family members.

At the first of a series of public hearings, which started earlier, Mr Pascoe said it was "time for change" and added the panel needed to "move this fraught position forwards towards some degree of resolution".

He said the hearings, which will last six weeks, would look at how Southern Health handles complaints and communicates with families of patients.

The chairman said the deaths were a "truly deplorable and unacceptable saga" in which "leadership was lacking" and there was a "systematic culture of delay".

Who are the five families?

• Maureen Rickman, sister of Jo Deering, 52, from New Milton, Hampshire, who died in 2011

• Diane Small, mother of Robert Small, 28, from Fareham, Hampshire, who died in 2012

• Richard West, father of David West, 28, from Southampton, who died in 2013

• Ian and Jane Hartley, parents of Edward Hartley, 18, from Wickham, Hampshire, who died in 2014

• Angie Mote and Kim Vella, daughters of Marion Munns, 74, from Southampton, who died in 2015

Mr Pascoe said he would not comment on the decision of the bereaved families to withdraw from the investigation after they claimed to have been "misled, misrepresented and bullied" by the NHS.

"To do so would be to prolong their agony, with the added danger of creating a sideshow," he said.

The families, who believe poor care from the trust contributed to their relatives' deaths, previously said they had "lost all trust" in a process which become a "charade".

A spokesperson for NHS England said it was "disappointed" by the decision and added it remained committed to learning lessons.

Mr Pascoe said at the "top of my list" was the need for a "completely new and independent investigative system" at the trust, so that "never again would families feel that they had not been heard or were subjected to sub-standard in-house investigations".

"We shall look carefully and fairly at evidence which shows actual or potential reform. But we are nobody's creature or mouthpiece," he said.

The trust was fined £2m due to failings in relation to two patients, including 18-year-old Connor Sparrowhawk

A service user who complained to the trust told the inquiry "came up against a dead end" and found the process "damaging".

Matt White said he "received silence in return" to his complaints from around December 2018 until May 2019.

Mr White said he felt processes were "not followed" and suggested that complaints be "investigated by an outside and impartial body with authority to request all evidence".

'Trust should be open and honest'

He added he had "not seen improvement" in the trust's handling of complaints and felt there was "no closure, no resolution to my queries, to my questions".

"They should just be open and honest," he added.

In response to questions around the trust's current approach to handling complaints, Julia Lake, deputy director of nursing, said she felt the trust had "really shifted and changed".

She added: "We recognise wholeheartedly that we have not always got that right."

In 2015, the trust was found to have failed to investigate hundreds of deaths. The scandal led to the chief executive and chairman having to resign.

The trust was also fined £2m due to failings in relation to two patients, including 18-year-old Connor Sparrowhawk, who drowned in a bath following an epileptic seizure while under the care of the trust in Oxfordshire.