The North East London Foundation Trust (NELFT) is on trial for corporate manslaughter in connection with the death of Alice Figueiredo, 22, who passed away in 2015 during her stay at Goodmayes Hospital, reports Sebastian Mann, Local Democracy Reporter
Removing the items a mental health patient used to take her own life would have been an “overreaction,” a court heard.
Alice Figueiredo, 22, was a patient on the Hepworth ward, an acute psychiatric ward in Goodmayes Hospital, when she died in 2015.
She used plastic bin bags in 18 self-harm attempts, including in her fatal attempt on 7th July.
Benjamin Aninakwa, the ward manager at the time of her death, has pleaded not guilty to gross negligence manslaughter. The North East London Foundation NHS Trust (NELFT) similarly denies charges of corporate manslaughter over her death.
John Cooper KC, the defence for NELFT, quoted a previous expert witness as saying that removing the items from the ward would have been an “overreaction”.
He said that Alice had been on less strict observation levels at the time of her death and her wellbeing had apparently been “improving”. He said her “leave had increased” and told the jury she had attended a Fleetwood Mac concert with her boyfriend in late June.
The court previously heard that rules about infection control would have also made the change difficult to implement. The items were not removed from the Hepworth ward until after Alice died.
Cooper said that the trust had been carrying out a scoping exercise about bags on wards at the time of Alice’s death.
It had not been completed by 7th July, and the defence said it was “impossible” to say if it would have recommended removing the items.
The jury also heard that 21 of 30 trusts reported an incident involving a bin bag within a patient area. Not every incident necessarily involved self-harm, and may have related to incorrectly discarded cigarettes, Cooper said as an example.
Regarding the prosecution’s comments earlier this week that the bags were an “obvious risk” to Alice, he said: “Why, in 2015, did 70% of trusts have bin bags [on wards] if it was so obvious?”
Those trusts would have been managing hundreds of wards where patients were at risk of suicide, he said.
He told the jury the “policies, procedures, and systems” NELFT had in place were “all entirely appropriate”.
He said the trust had taken a “reasonable approach”.
Alice’s parents, Jane and Max Figueiredo, were present in the courtroom.
The trial continues.
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