Bereaved mother hopes inquiry into mental health deaths will bring change

A mother whose daughter took her own life within months of being discharged from a mental health facility has said she hopes a statutory public inquiry will stop others from being “let down” by the system.

The Lampard Inquiry, chaired by Baroness Kate Lampard CBE, will investigate the deaths of people who were receiving mental health inpatient care in Essex between 2000 and 2023.

The inquiry, examining the deaths of almost 2,000 mental health patients, is to begin on Monday in Chelmsford.

This will include people who died within three months of discharge, and those who died as inpatients receiving NHS-funded care in the independent sector.

Martha Gaskell, whose daughter Marion Turner was found dead aged 40 on January 18 2013, said she hopes the inquiry will bring “accountability”.

An inquest into the death of Ms Turner concluded that she died by hanging, having killed herself at her home while suffering from a diagnosed mental illness.

She had been discharged from The Lakes mental health facility in Colchester in October 2012.

Ms Gaskell said she had been “begging for them to take her into hospital, they wouldn’t”.

Following Ms Turner’s death, the then senior coroner for Essex Caroline Beasley-Murray said she was concerned there was a risk of future deaths if action was not taken.

She wrote in a report: “Evidence was given that the day before Ms Turner’s death, her solicitor, as a result of concerns about her mental health, had telephoned into the mental health trust office and left a message for Ms Turner’s CPN (community psychiatric nurse).

“This message remained on a slip of paper, unread, in a pigeon hole until sometime the next day.”

Ms Gaskell, speaking ahead of the public inquiry that begins on Monday, said: “What I’d like to see, obviously I know it’s not going to bring my daughter back, but what I’d like to see is accountability for what the failings were.

“But also that anybody else that has to go through the mental health system will not be let down.”

Asked if she was confident there would be positive changes, she said: “I’m hoping, that’s all I can say because it’s been so long of me doing complaints and investigations, never finding out the outcomes of the investigations, never been told.

“And also from when my daughter Marion died, even up until I spoke to somebody in Essex yesterday and somebody’s just died recently, suicide.

“It just seems nothing’s changing.

“So hopefully this’ll make change, that’s all you can hope for.”

Ms Gaskell, who now works as a counsellor, said that like her, mother-of-four Ms Turner was from a military family.

She said she planned to give evidence to the public inquiry, which she said was “nerve-wracking”.

Ms Gaskell, 68, of Stoke-on-Trent , Staffordshire, said that her daughter had struggled with her mental health “all the way through”.

“She was a very lovely, caring person,” she said.

“A very good mother, she loved her children to death.”

Ms Gaskell said: “I just hope and pray that we get the answers we need and they change, because it’s so needed.”

Paul Scott, Chief Executive of Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust  (EPUT), said: “We know how painful this time will be for those who have lost loved ones and our thoughts are with them.

“We will continue to do all we can to support Baroness Lampard and her team to provide the answers that patients, families and carers are seeking.”

– The Samaritans can be contacted on 116123 or email jo@samaritans.org

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