Review into mental health deaths should become public inquiry, chair urges government

The chair of an independent review into the deaths of around 2,000 mental health patient in Essex has called for the government to grant a public inquiry into the scandal, to compel more staff to give evidence, it has emerged.

The Essex Mental Health Independent Inquiry is gathering evidence about mental health inpatient deaths in the county over a 21-year period.

However chair of the inquiry Dr Geraldine Strathdee, a former national NHS director, wrote to health secretary Steve Barclay in April, it has been revealed, asking that he convert the review into a statutory public inquiry.

In a letter on 17 April, she said the current review, which does not have the legal powers to compel people to give evidence, “cannot effectively meet the terms of reference if the inquiry remains on a non-statutory footing.”

The letter said staff evidence is “vital” to the inquiry and not enough frontline workers had come forward, despite efforts to engage staff. A statutory public inquiry would be able to compel witness statements.

The letter added: “My greatest concern with staff engagement is that less than 30 per cent of named staff, those essential witnesses involved in deaths we are investigating, have agreed to attend evidence sessions. In my assessment, I cannot properly investigate matters with this level of engagement.”

Just 11 members of staff out of 14,000 contacted by the inquiry said they would attend an evidence session, a parliamentary debate earlier this year was told.

The Essex mental health deaths inquiry, which is non-statutory and cannot currently compel staff, was launched in January 2021, and is now reviewing the deaths of 2,000 people who died either on a mental health ward or within three months on discharge between 2000 and 2020.

It came following a series of NHS reports, and police investigations, into deaths of patients who were under the care or were inpatients of Essex mental health services.

One report in January, by the Parliamentary Health Service Ombudsman, criticised the NHS trust, at the time called North Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust, for “systemic failures” in the death of a young man called Matthew Leahy.

His mother Melanie Leahy has been leading a campaign, with dozens of families, who have been calling for the review to be converted into a public inquiry.

The calls have been backed by former home secretary, Preeti Patel and MP Sir John Whittingdale.

Ms Leahy told The Independent: “I’m stunned that this letter was sent on 23 March and we still have no answers despite a group of MPs meeting with Mr Barclay on 17 April...there appears to be an open-ended delay and patients keep dying.”

The chair was also commissioned to carry out a rapid review of the government looking into patient safety data collected for mental health services.

This review, which is yet to be published, was launched following a series of scandals exposed across mental health services.

A Department for Health and Social Care spokesperson said it is “considering the inquiry’s next steps and will update in due course.”