Girl died after Huntercombe Hospital’s staff failure, jury told

A teenager left alone at a mental health hospital should have been under constant supervision when she self-harmed and later died, an inquest heard.

Ruth Szymankiewicz, 14, was being cared for by a member of staff on his first shift at Huntercombe Hospital, near Maidenhead, on 12 February 2022.

He left work without handing on his responsibilities to a colleague, leaving Ruth, from Salisbury, alone to walk around the hospital and to her room, assistant coroner Ian Wade KC said.

The man had false papers and flew back to Ghana, where he is believed to be from, and Ruth was later found unconscious. She died at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford two days later.

Ruth had been cared for on Thames ward, a psychiatric intensive care unit (PICU) at the hospital, since October 2021. She had been diagnosed with an eating disorder.

The hospital, which has since shut down, was rated inadequate and later requires improvement in two separate inspections in 2021.

Her parents Kate and Mark said Ruth loved animals and reading and had a “fiery, determined” personality and a “huge heart”. They said she “was and still is deeply loved” and that her death “shattered us”.

The jury heard she had climbed Kilimanjaro aged 11. She had lived for a time in Tanzania with her mother and father, a GP and surgeon respectively, and her two sisters.

Mr Wade said the hospital worker “simply left” the hospital on 12 February and had “let [Ruth] down”. He has not been found and no one has been prosecuted.

After the man left, Ruth walked from the TV lounge, back into Thames ward and into her room and was captured on CCTV doing so, Mr Wade added.

Other staff were caring for other patients and did not notice her, the jury was told.

The inquest, at Buckinghamshire Coroner’s Court in Beaconsfield, is expected to last for about two weeks.