\n<\/p>\n
A woman killed herself after a south London psychiatric unit failed to search her possessions adequately, a coroner has concluded.<\/p>\n
Michelle Sparman, a personal trainer and call dispatcher for the Metropolitan police from Battersea, south-west London, died on 28 August 2021 at Kingston hospital, four days after trying to take her own life.<\/p>\n
The assistant coroner, Bernard Richmond KC, concluded that Sparman, 48, died of a hypoxic brain injury, determining she had died by \u201csuicide whilst the balance of her mind was disturbed, contributed to by neglect\u201d.<\/p>\n
He determined four probable causes of death: her struggles with anxiety and depression, including impulsiveness; a \u201cdifficult relationship\u201d with her ex-partner, including \u201cintemperate and excessive texting\u201d from him, which called into question her mental health and fitness to be a mother; her \u201cjustifiable feelings of abuse\u201d as a result of his behaviour, and inadequate searching on leaving and entering Rose Ward, a locked 20-bed female-only mental health unit at Queen Mary\u2019s hospital in Roehampton.<\/p>\n
He cited her perimenopausal symptoms and financial and professional problems as possible causes.<\/p>\n
He said Sparman had presented as a voluntary inpatient in Rose Ward, with clear \u201cred flags\u201d that she was at risk of harming herself.<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cThe duty to protect someone in a mental health ward from injuring themself with items seems to me to be a fundamental obligation of the ward.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe failure to search adequately is so fundamental, it easily passes the Jamieson test [a standard of proof for a finding of neglect in an inquest] \u2026 She did precisely the thing she should have been guarded against.\u201d<\/p>\n
Richmond will also produce a prevention of future deaths report looking at a need for mental health wards to introduce a centralised record of all dangerous items that are on the ward, which he plans to submit to NHS England given its potential national implications.<\/p>\n
Richmond noted the impact of Sparman\u2019s \u201cdifficult relationship\u201d with her ex-partner Roger Stephens, and though he felt there was \u201cno doubt a great deal of love between them\u201d, the relationship gained a \u201ccertain toxicity\u201d.<\/p>\n
He added that Stephens\u2019 messaging constituted harassment and left Sparman feeling \u201ctrapped\u201d, but he did not believe this was done \u201cdeliberately\u201d.<\/p>\n
Over five days of evidence in May, Inner West London coroner\u2019s court heard how Sparman\u2019s mental health deteriorated after the breakdown of her 28-year relationship in January 2020.<\/p>\n
In texts sent to her siblings, Sparman said she could \u201cend up killing myself\u201d over Stephens\u2019 subsequent behaviour.<\/p>\n
Stephens told Richmond that \u201cin hindsight I should not have sent so many texts\u201d, and agreed that they were \u201cvery angry\u201d and had \u201cput stress on her\u201d.<\/p>\n
On 21 August 2021, Sparman was taken to hospital after Stephens found she had taken an overdose and self-harmed. Sparman was put in the \u201cred zone\u201d category, meaning she was supposed to be searched for harmful items.<\/p>\n
Ward manager Meredith Kuleshnyk, who found Sparman, said lessons had been learned including more staff training around searches and a search room being made available.<\/p>\n
Although he acknowledged the staffing pressures the ward was under, Richmond determined that the absence of record-keeping was \u201ca profoundly worrying state of affairs\u201d. Despite evidence suggesting Rose Ward\u2019s practices had changed, Richmond said he was not satisfied that a \u201crobust recording system\u201d was now in place.<\/p>\n
Jennifer MacLeod, the lawyer representing the family, cited statistics showing that in Rose Ward, in 2020, there were 70 instances of self-harm \u2013 indicating that staff intervened before suicide could be attempted.<\/p>\n
Kuleshnyk also told the inquest that she planned to discuss domestic abuse with Sparman after observing her interaction with Stephens.<\/p>\n
In a self-referral to Talk Wandsworth, a talking therapy service, Sparman stated that Stephens\u2019 behaviour \u201chas impacted on my sleep, my eating, my confidence, my emotional and mental wellbeing\u201d.<\/p>\n
Shaun Case, Sparman\u2019s half-brother, said she spoke of \u201canxiety, tightness in her chest when his [Stephens\u2019] name came up on her phone\u201d, and that she feared him turning up at her flat.<\/p>\n
MacLeod said: \u201cThe family\u2019s position is that she perceived that as abuse, and all the medical professionals we have heard from perceived that as abuse.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A woman killed herself after a south London psychiatric unit failed to search her possessions adequately, a coroner has concluded. Michelle Sparman, a personal trainer and call dispatcher for the Metropolitan police from Battersea, south-west London, died on 28 August 2021 at Kingston hospital, four days after trying to take her own life. The assistant<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34170,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[7512,4648,578,178,632,1661,11561,122,668],"class_list":{"0":"post-34169","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-concludes","9":"tag-coroner","10":"tag-hospital","11":"tag-hospitals","12":"tag-killed","13":"tag-london","14":"tag-neglect","15":"tag-south","16":"tag-woman"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34169\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/34170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}