This article contains details of suicide and self-harm
A teenage girl who died while in the care of a mental health service complained of staff treating her “like dirt”, an inquest has heard.
Emily Moore, from Shildon, was found unconscious at Durham’s Lanchester Road Hospital shortly after her 18th birthday in February 2020 and died two days later.
She had previously been a detained patient at West Lane Hospital in MIddlesbrough which, like Lanchester Road, was run by Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust (TEWV).
One of Emily’s clinicians told the inquest criticism of West Lane was “fair” and Emily did not get the treatment she needed due to staff shortages.
The inquest, which is being held before a jury in Crook, heard Emily began harming herself and attempting suicide in 2017 when she was 15.
Medication and therapy in the community was ineffective so, due to the high risk she posed to herself, she was admitted against her will to the 14-bed Newberry Centre at West Lane in March 2019, the inquest heard.
Emily was given a working diagnosis of emotionally unstable personality disorder (EUPD), her consultant psychiatrist Melanie Willetts told jurors.
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) ordered the closing of the hospital in August 2019 following the deaths of two patients, with Emily moved to the more secure Ferndene in Prudhoe, run by Cumbria, Northumberland Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust.
