Guernsey's mental health ward 'working hard' after death

Lauren Ellis was found dead at the Oberlands mental health unit in October 2017

Guernsey's mental health service has "worked hard" to improve after the death of a woman, a review has found.

Lauren Ellis was found dead at the Oberlands unit in October 2017.

Naomi Prestidge, 30, and Rory McDermott, 32, admitted failing to conduct welfare checks, but were found not guilty of manslaughter by gross negligence.

A report into the service said it was showing a "desire to learn from incidents".

Ms Ellis, a mental health campaigner, who had a personality disorder and a history of self harm, took her own life at the unit.

She went to A&E several times after self-harming in the days before admitting herself to Oberlands in order to break that cycle.

A trial last month heard Prestidge and McDermott had admitted failing to conduct welfare checks on Ms Ellis every 15 minutes after 01:00 BST.

Her body was discovered more than 90 minutes later.

Lauren Ellis was being treated at the mental health unit when she took her own life

"After the tragic death of Ms Ellis in 2017, it was right that we looked at what could be done to prevent anything similar happening," said chief nurse Professor Juliet Beal.

"We have been working hard to bring in improvements to adult mental health services, and that work continues," she added.

The "brief" external review was carried out by Dr Geraldine O'Sullivan, who could not interview staff at the mental health unit due to the ongoing investigation at the time.

She said it was providing a "good service", and a full service review was "not necessary at this stage".