Keiran Toman
12 May 2014 · Coroner Fiona Wilcox · London Inner (West)
The coroner's concerns
1. lack of information sharing with families
“some psychiatric staff and services may effectively collude with patients by acquiescing to requests not to pass on information to their families, when these decisions are taken by patients who have insufficient insight to make them”
2. patient isolation and risk of death
“lack of contact with families in such circumstances may leave vulnerable patients isolated and increase their risk of deterioration and death”
3. inadequate capacity assessment
“some psychiatric staff may be insufficiently trained to assess the capacity of patients to decline contact with next of kin”
4. failure to contact family after disengagement
“where decisions are taken by psychiatric staff not to contact family in line with a patients wishes in order to try and keep that patient engaged with services, that contact is still not made to the family or next of kin even when such a patient disengages from the psychiatric services”
5. inadequate review of permission to contact families
“permission to contact next of kin/ family decisions taken by patients may not be reviewed often enough by those providing psychiatric care, such that information in relation to changes in treatment, mental state, discharge, provider of care etc may not be being appropriately communicated to the detriment of patients”
Responses
No published response was found on judiciary.uk.