Mental Health Solicitors

A mental health trust has been prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), after a vulnerable mental health patient was paralysed following a fall from height.

The 26-year-old male patient had a history of self-harming and had climbed onto the roof of a single storey building during a smoking break at Lincolnshire’s Boston Pilgrim Hospital, where he was detained under the Mental Health Act.

In March 2013 – one week after he was detained on Ward 12 at the hospital – staff escorted the patient to the hospital’s exterior quad so he could smoke a cigarette. However, on both occasions he managed to climb onto a wall and the shelter used for smokers, to access the roof of the single storey building.

On the first occasion, his smoking privileges were removed for a day, but on the second occasion – despite being escorted outside by a nurse – he sprinted away from staff to access the roof from where he fell, sustaining a head injury as he hit the concrete surface below.

The man suffered bleeding on the brain and was found to have suffered a broken neck, which has left him paralysed from the chest down. The injury is likely to be permanent and he now requires round-the-clock nursing care.

The HSE investigation found serious failing in the management of the hospital ward, which cares for acute care mental health patients – including the fact that roof to the quad had been regularly accessed by mental health patients over a five-year period.

Nothing was done to address the issue, however – or control the risk of patients accessing the roof with the purpose of absconding or causing harm to themselves. It is reported the paralysed man “dived” off the roof once he had accessed it.

Management at Boston Pilgrim Hospital had not conducted a risk assessment relating to the potential for self-harming in the quad area – despite a ward audit in November 2012, which failed to identify any issues with the quad or the roof. The incident log, however, suggested that there was a potential for self-harm in the quad area.

On Wednesday, 1 October 2014, at Boston Magistrates’ Court, Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust of Lions Way, Sleaford in Lincolnshire admitted breaching Section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974. The trust was fined £20,000 and ordered to pay costs of £6,864.

After the hearing, HSE Investigator Lyn Spooner said:

“While the immediate cause of the incident was a failure to prevent a patient with tendencies for self-harming gaining access to the roof, the underlying cause at the heart of this case is the systematic management failings of the trust.

“Here was a vulnerable patient who had been detained under the Mental
Health Act for his own safety – yet the necessary level of control needed to protect him from harm had not been achieved.

“As a result, he gained easy access to a roof, dived off and suffered life-changing injuries.”

Duncan Lewis Mental Health Solicitors

Duncan Lewis is a leading firm of specialist mental health solicitors – and the largest provider of Legal Aid mental health services in England and Wales.

Duncan Lewis mental health solicitors regularly visit hospitals, police stations and prisons to advise on mental health law – and are available for short-notice appointments across the country.

For expert legal advice on mental health law – including access to services and detention under the Mental Health Act – call the Duncan Lewis Mental Health Solicitors’ Helpline on 0203 114 1124.