Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Trust admits failures over deaths

Christie Harnett, 17, had been in care facilities for two years

A mental health trust has admitted failures in how it cared for two patients who took their own lives.

Christie Harnett, 17, and an unnamed woman, were being treated at hospitals run by Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys (TEWV) NHS Trust in Middlesbrough.

The Care Quality Commission prosecuted it for putting them at "significant risk of avoidable harm".

The trust pleaded guilty before Teesside magistrates. However, it denied a charge over Emily Moore, 18.

She was from Shildon, County Durham, and took her own life in February 2020.

Miss Moore had been a patient at West Lane Hospital but was later moved to adult services at Lanchester Road Hospital, run by the same trust.

A trial over alleged breaches of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 has been set for February.

Emily Moore was a patient at West Lane Hospital before she was transferred

Miss Harnett, from Newton Aycliffe, County Durham, took her own life at West Lane Hospital in June 2019.

The unnamed woman, who was a mother, died in November 2020 while at Roseberry Park Hospital, which was also run by the TEWV trust.

Miss Harnett's family has now called for a full public inquiry into what happened.

Her death and treatment has already been subject to an NHS England inquiry, along with the death of Miss Moore.

West Lane Hospital was closed following an inspection and operates under a new name

A total of 120 faults and failures in "care and service delivery" across a number of agencies were found over the treatment provided to them.

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"That place was meant to keep her safe and meant to keep her from harming herself and possibly dying, and it was a place where she did actually die," her stepfather Michael Harnett told the BBC.

"Every time they have spoken, every time we have met with them, they have never sat there and held their hands up and said 'sorry we messed up'.

"To finally hear a guilty plea... it's them admitting that it's their fault that she's dead and that shouldn't be the case."

Michael Harnett has continued to fight for his stepdaughter since her death

Her grandmother, Casey Tremain, said it had felt like a "nightmare" because "nobody was listening".

"It has taken so long and I would have felt more comfortable if they could have held their hands up right at the start and said 'yes, we have made serious errors here'," she said.

"But it was never about that, I don't think we as families figured anywhere in it, it was all about the trust, preserving the trust's reputation.

"I can't understand why nobody listened, why things were not investigated sooner."

'Nobody cared'

West Lane, which provided specialist child and adolescent mental health services, including treatment for eating disorders, was closed down by inspectors after significant concerns were raised in 2019.

It reopened under the name Acklam Road Hospital in May 2021, and inpatient provision for children and adolescents is now provided by Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust.

The mother of the second woman, who has not been named in legal proceedings, told the BBC she had never "been able to grieve" for her child.

"I've had to spend the last three years trying to support her children," she said.

"I can't attend the court because I'm so frightened I'd open my mouth, because I'm that angry.

"All the mistakes that have gone on from the start, no-one was listening, nobody cared."

TEWV said it could not "begin to imagine" how difficult it was for "the families and loved ones involved".

"Today we gave our pleas to charges made by the Care Quality Commission," a spokesperson said.

"We hope you can appreciate that we can't comment further due to ongoing legal proceedings."

The Department for Health and Social Care has not responded to calls for an investigation into the trust but said a new safety investigations body to be launched in October will look at mental health inpatient care across England.