Trust admits care failings and pays family compensation

The Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust has accepted responsibility for the death of Connor Sparrowhawk, an 18-year-old patient who died at an assessment and treatment unit at the trust in 2014.

An independent investigation by Verita, and an inquest jury, found that his death was preventable and there were significant failings in the care provided to him.

The trust has paid £80,000 compensation to his family.

Repeated failures

The family’s solicitor Charlotte Haworth said the trust’s statement finally showed ‘that Connor and they were repeatedly failed by Southern Health’.

She said the family ‘remained dignified and dedicated to ensuring no other individual receives the treatment that Connor and they have’.

Deborah Coles, director of the charity Inquest, which supported Mr Sparrowhawk’s family said: ‘The truth came about only as a result of the family’s fight for it.  

‘The failure to set up a process whereby deaths of learning disabled and mental health patients are independently investigated sends a message out that these lives do not matter.’