Trust to review patient homicides following manslaughter case

NHS England has also commissioned an inquiry into the care and treatment of Matthew Daley, who stabbed Don Lock to death last year after a minor car accident. Daley was found guilty on Monday at Lewes Crown Court.

The jury heard that his family had pleaded with doctors to section Daley before the killing occurred, and there were questions about his diagnosis while in the care of Sussex Partnership.

The case has led to the trust and NHS England jointly commissioning an independent review into 10 cases between 2011 and 2016 involving the trust’s patients.

The inquiry will look at how it responded to nine cases when someone who had used their services was the perpetrator, and a tenth case where someone in their care was killed.

Clinical commissioning groups had already commissioned independent inquiries into many of these cases, but the trust says it is important to look at them together to see if there are any common themes it needs to respond to.

Trust chief executive Colm Donaghy said: “We apologise unreservedly because the care we provided to Matthew Daley should have been better. We also offer our sincere condolences to the family of Don Lock and everyone else affected by this tragic, devastating incident.

“Mr Daley was referred to our services in January 2008. He received treatment from our early intervention service, which helps people who are starting to experience the symptoms of psychosis. He was later transferred to the care of one of our community mental health teams where he received treatment for a combination of Asperger’s syndrome and psychosis.

“Having reviewed his care, it’s clear that we should have reviewed Mr Daley’s diagnosis, looked at other ways of providing treatment, done more to help him manage his symptoms of psychosis and listened to his family more closely. We got things wrong. But we do not believe that any of our staff acted in a way which was deliberately negligent or designed to cause harm.”

He said the review into the homicides was to offer assurance “that we have done everything we should have in response to these tragic cases”.