An MP has called for an independent public inquiry into a health trust after it admitted that it contributed to the deaths of two of their vulnerable patients.

Mental health trust Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys (TEWV) failed to provide safe care and treatment to Christie Harnett, 17, and a young woman, referred to as Patient X for legal reasons, between 2019 and 2020, in separate incidents in separate hospitals.

The Trust’s breach of the Health and Social Care Act resulted in “avoidable harm or loss”.

Now Andy McDonald, the MP for Middlesbrough, has called for a "forensic and wide-ranging analysis" to determine the lessons that need to be learned from the "awful deaths". 

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He joins the family of Christie Harnett, who have expressed their relief at the guilty plea, but said that the fight for a public inquiry goes on. 

On Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Trust guilty pleas, MP Andy McDonald said: "This is another milestone in this terrible saga. The bottom line is that had the Trust done their job properly then these two young women may well be with us today.

"The pleas for a full public inquiry into all the issues that theseterrible tragedies have exposed, have fallen on deaf ears.

"In cases of such dreadful failures, the demands of families are invariably the same. They want and demand three things: truth, justice and change.

"The conviction of the Trust speaks to the call for justice, but only in part. Thus far the individuals responsible for such a catalogue of catastrophic errors have not been held to account.

Read more: TEWV Trust pleads guilty in connection to patient deaths

"We will not secure the changes we need in provision of mental health service for our young people until such times as we have a forensic and wide-ranging analysis of not only the lessons to be learned from these awful deaths but what an appropriate and safe system of mental health care looks like."

Michael Harnett, Christie's stepfather, said: "We have said from day one that there should be a public inquiry and we will keep saying that after today – if the trust just pays a fine for Christie's death, and Patient X's, it is not accountability."

Alistair Smith, a lawyer representing the Harnett family, added: "It is apparent that when there are guilty pleas in two separate cases in two separate hospitals, 18 months apart, there is a need for an inquiry."