Shildon hospital death teen ‘did not get care she deserved’

Jurors also heard from Christina Clark, a manager of an adult ward at another psychiatric hospital who was parachuted in to take charge of the 14-bed Newberry Centre in February 2019, a month before Emily’s admission.

She said she had been told there were problems on the ward but she “did not understand how bad it was” until she arrived.

As a result of the earlier suspensions of their colleagues, staff were “very fearful” of allegations being made against them by patients and feared being sacked, Clark said, adding she felt like an “outsider”.

She said she was “concerned” about the number of incidents of patients being restrained, adding it was more frequent than in the ward for women she had come from and it was “distressing” the children.

Dolan said the independent review found Emily’s care plan, which would have helped staff offer targeted treatment, was incomplete and “inadequate”, which Clark agreed with.

Clark also said staff were “inconsistent” with their approach to Emily, who was an “intelligent young lady”, which would have caused her harm.

She said the ward was “very chaotic” and challenging and “it almost felt like we were fighting fire on a daily basis”.

One issue was staff doing their own rosters, something she had not seen before in the NHS, which was “not effective at all” and meant there was often not the right the mix of staffing skills on shifts, Clark told jurors.

The inquest previously heard the hospital was ordered to be closed by the Care Quality Commission in August 2019.

In July 2019, Emily was moved to Ferndene in Prudhoe, a more secure unit run by Cumbria, Northumberland Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust.

She was transferred to a ward for adults at Lanchester Road two days after turning 18 and died within a week, jurors have heard.

The inquest continues.

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