The Peggy Copeman Inquest and what it says about Mental Health Services

 

This is a special post looking at the implications of the Peggy Copeman Inquest, which concluded on Friday, 25th June 2021.

Peggy Copeman died in a private ambulance on the hard shoulder of the M11 on the 16th December 2019, while being transferred between hospitals while detained under the Mental Health Act. This is what happened.

Peggy was 81 years old, and had been a resident in a care home in Norfolk. She had a long standing diagnosis of schizophrenia. A request for an assessment under the Mental Health Act was made when she appeared to be experiencing a significant deterioration in her health. She was refusing medication, food and drink and acting out against staff - actions described as "out of character". 

She was assessed on 11th December, but the Norfolk and Suffolk Mental Health Foundation Trust had no beds available, and arranged for her to be admitted to the Cygnet Hospital in Taunton, a private hospital 280 miles away.

The admission took place by private ambulance on 12th December.

While at the Cygnet hospital, she was diagnosed with a urinary tract infection and received treatment. On 15th December it was reported that she appeared dehydrated and was described as sunken, pallid, and having a dry mouth. There were concerns about her fluid intake. A nurse reported "She was the most poorly patient on the ward."

Nevertheless, the NSFT arranged for her to be transferred back to Norfolk when a bed became available a few days later, and a private ambulance service, Premier Rescue, provided transport on 16th December.

Despite her age, frailty, and physical ill health, a Ford Transit van with a crew of 3 was sent.

The driver said : "I was shocked at how old she was. I have not transported anyone of that age before. The patients we deal with are young and more spritely." He added that they had to "practically lift her in" to her seat.

After 2 hours, the transport stopped at a Motorway Services and Peggy was asked if she'd like a coffee. However, she only responded by groaning.

Undeterred, they continued on their way until the driver heard a noise "so loud I thought there was something caught under the car." He was told it was Peggy snoring. The other staff then noticed mucus coming out of her nose, and at this point they pulled onto the hard shoulder of the motorway, and Peggy then took her last breath.

It was reported that initially they contacted the Cygnet for advice and were told to ring 999. By the time an emergency ambulance arrived, Peggy was dead.

Dr Khalid Khan, a cardiology expert, said that in his view the ambulance staff had failed to recognise the Peggy was in respiratory or cardiac distress and she had "effectively died whilst sitting between them". He thought that they did not act promptly in calling emergency services in a "reasonable or timely matter". He concluded that her life may have been saved had a defibrillator been on board.

It was revealed that none of the ambulance staff had any medical training, with one member trained in CPR, and another shadowing.

The Coroner Jacqueline Lake, in a narrative statement concluded: "Peggy Copeman died from a fatal ventricular arrhythmia as a result of ischaemic heart disease. 

"Her death has been escalated by a short time by not being recognised and acted on whilst being transported on December 16 2019."

She said that evidence suggested Mrs Copeman would not have survived a hospital discharge but said that  the use of a defibrillator may have allowed her family to see her and "say their goodbyes and for her to die in an appropriate and dignified setting."

This tragic case highlights all that is wrong with the current state of mental health care.

All the services involved failed in their duties. The Cygnet Hospital failed to make a proper physical assessment of Peggy's ability to survive a journey of 280 miles. The private Premier Rescue Ambulance Service did not supply a suitable ambulance or properly trained staff.

But ultimately her death in such appalling circumstances could have been avoided if only the Norfolk and Suffolk Foundation Trust had had enough suitable beds to meet needs.

The NSFT has been in special measures since 2017, with little sign of any significant improvement. Several years ago it closed all the beds in King's Lynn for older people, meaning the only beds for older people in Norfolk are in Norwich, even though demand for beds has increased during that time. It has half the average number of beds for older people, despite it serving an area with an ageing population. In the year 2019-20 alone it spent £7 million on out of area beds.

However, the problem is much deeper and more intractable. This dire state of affairs has been made possible by the massive national cutbacks in funding for mental health services and the NHS in general, and the encouragement by stealth of privatisation in the NHS and the creation of an internal market through dividing the NHS into Trusts.

An example of this is the creation of regional ambulance trusts, who then contract with Clinical Commissioning Groups to provide services. These contracts can often be arbitrary and not reflect the actual needs. One example was that of the East of England Ambulance Trust, who would happily transport a patient detained under s.136 to a Place of Safety, but once that person had been assessed and a decision made to admit them to a hospital, that subsequent journey was not covered by their contract.

Having worked in statutory mental health for going on 40 years, I know that in the past local ambulance services would if necessary take a patient to a hospital anywhere in the country. The East of England Ambulance Trust, which covers Norfolk and Suffolk, will not transport patients outside the area covered by the Trust, meaning that AMHP services and the NSFT are reliant on private ambulance services to do this. Although all private ambulance services have to be approved by the CQC, those using them have little control over the quality of the service provided.

Private hospitals are another area where vast amounts of NHS money are spent, for often very poor services.

St Andrews Healthcare is a good example. It has, among other hospitals, a vast psychiatric hospital in Northampton with over 650 beds. Its annual report for 2019-20 states:

St Andrew's receives almost all of its income from NHS commissioners... Our single biggest source of such funding is NHS England... Our other main source of funding is the Clinical Commissioning Groups who commission our services for their patients with complex needs.

NHS England reported that it had directly purchased £294,796,282.22 of services from St Andrews Healthcare over the period January 2014 to July 2017. 

In February 2018 St Andrews Healthcare Northampton was rated by the CQC as “inadequate”.

Then there's Priory Healthcare. They are probably best known for providing drug and alcohol detox programmes for high profile celebrities, but it is one of the biggest private mental health care providers in the country. In 2017 it had an operating profit of £2 million.

In December 2020, the Priory Group was sold to a Dutch private equity company for £1.08 billion.

On 17.04.19. the Priory Group was fined £300,000 over the death of a 14-year-old girl, Amy el-Keria, in their hospital in Ticehurst, East Sussex, in 2012. Amy had a recent history of self-harm and suicide attempts and was found hanged in her room, a room that had been assessed by an untrained staff member to have “medium risks” with a number of ligature points, but this assessment had not been followed up. There was a catalogue of poor and negligent practice. Staff did not promptly call 999 or a doctor and were not trained in CPR. The hospital’s lift was too small to accommodate the ambulance service’s stretcher. Nobody from the hospital went with Amy in the ambulance.

Sounds a bit familiar, doesn't it?

I'd like to think that Peggy's death will lead to national changes to the provision of mental health care. But I doubt it.