DWP missed chances to help woman who died, says coroner

The Department for Work and Pensions has 56 days to respond to the coroner's report

A coroner has said the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) missed opportunities to help a woman who died after taking an overdose.

Nazerine Anderson's mental health deteriorated after the DWP said it would review her universal credit.

A coroner said the DWP then missed six opportunities to record her vulnerability and overlooked requests to send correspondence to her daughter.

The DWP has promised to review the coroner's findings.

An inquest into the death of Ms Anderson, who was known as Naz, heard she had a history of anxiety and depression over 20 years.

But her mental health started to decline seriously after the DWP said it would review her universal credit payments and she was admitted voluntarily to an acute mental health unit in December 2022.

The coroner said asking for correspondence to be sent to Ms Anderson's daughter was "a simple request" that was not acted on

She was then diagnosed with adjustment disorder, which is an excessive reaction to stress that involves negative thoughts, strong emotions and results changes in a person's behaviour.

The inquest heard the DWP review had triggered a high level of stress and took six months to complete.

During that time, Ms Anderson became tearful and distressed a number of times while on the telephone to the DWP, which was then asked to send all correspondence on the matter to her daughter.

But instead Ms Anderson directly received two telephone calls, a journal log and three letters setting out different sums of money owed to the DWP.

She then took an overdose in May 2023, but "did not intend to die as a result", the inquest heard.

However, she then died in hospital from complications a month later.

Fiona Butler, coroner for Rutland and North Leicestershire, has now written a prevention of future deaths report which criticises the DWP for missing six opportunities to help Ms Anderson by recording how vulnerable she was and failing to act on the request to send correspondence to her daughter by leaving it sitting on a computer system for four months.

She has now asked the DWP to put training in place for staff to make sure the issues which arose in Ms Anderson's inquest "aren't repeated with other vulnerable individuals".

The DWP has 56 days to respond.

A DWP spokesman said: "Our thoughts are with Ms Anderson's family.

"We will review the coroner's report and respond shortly."

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