Daughter gets compensation for mum's suicide
The daughter of a woman who committed suicide following her escape from a mental health facility, has won her professional negligence case.
Her mother was detained under the Mental Health Act and placed in Runwell Hospital.
It was reported that the woman had a known history of leaving the hospital without permission. She had also been classified as a suicide risk.
On the day of her death, she absconded from hospital and committed suicide at Wickford Station.
Her daughter's injury lawyers successfully argued that the NHS Trust failed to do everything within their power to protect her mother.
The lawyers added that the compensation claim for this type of case is thought to be a first for an English Court.
The court reached a decision after the lawyers proved that the South Essex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust indulged in negligence by breaching the dead woman's human rights.
The European Convention of Human Rights specifies that it is the NHS’s duty to protect everyone’s “right to life”.
The judge in the case rejected claims by the NHS that there was nothing they could have done to prevent the tragedy and awarded £10,000 in compensation for the daughter.
Updated on 09/05/2010