The boss of a beleaguered mental health trust said the organisation is now a “very different one”, following the tragic deaths of patients in its care.

In a draft annual report of the Tees, Esk and Wear Valley (TEWV) NHS Trust, chief executive Brent Kilmurray admitted there was still work to be done but said its latest inspection showed improvements had been made. The father of a girl who died in the care of the trust disagreed with Mr Kilmurray’s comments, saying he did not believe lessons had been learned.

The review, known as a Quality Account, outlined changes made and proposed at the trust and also included results of staff and patient surveys. Just over half (55 per cent) of staff surveyed said they would be happy having a friend or relative using the mental health service compared to a national average of 62 per cent.

Around two thirds of staff surveyed (68 per cent) agreed the organisation ensures errors, near misses and incidents do not repeat, compared to 70 per cent in 2022. Just over 78 per cent of people surveyed said they feel safe within inpatient areas against a target of 75 per cent.

The report also revealed 1,322 deaths were recorded to the trust’s incident reporting system during 2022/23, with the majority considered to be from natural causes. Of those deaths, 259 fit the criteria for further review and 143 mortality reviews were carried out.

“Of the 1,322 of the patient deaths during the reporting period, 0.007% are judged to be more likely than not to have been due to problems in the care provided to the patient,” said the report. The overall number of complaints regarding the trust, including PALS ((Patient Advice and Liaison Service) concerns, dropped from 2,784 in in 2022/23 to 2,477 the following year.

The mental health trust has come under fire in recent years over its management of traumatic cases including the deaths of teenage girls in 2019 and 2020. The trust was fined £200,000 after admitting failures in the care of Christie Harnett, and another patient, who cannot be named for legal reasons.

In a Quality Account statement, Mr Kilmurray apologised for failing in the care and treatment of those patients, adding: “They deserved better. We are deeply sorry for the events that led to these tragedies and our thoughts are with their families.”

He went on to say: “We are now a very different organisation, one that takes responsibility and is moving forwards. The CQC acknowledged this in our latest inspection and that noticeable improvements have been made.

“This is very much down to the hard work and dedication of colleagues across our trust, and the ongoing support and collaboration with our partners.” He also said there had been a “huge amount of work” to ensure the trust provides “safe and kind care”, “with a clear focus on patient safety”.

As reported, the trust was found not guilty of failures in the case of teenager Emily Moore following a trial at Teesside Magistrates’ Court. The 18-year-old died while being treated at Lanchester Road Hospital in Durham in 2020.

Her father David Moore disagreed with the verdict, saying “justice has not been served” in Emily’s case, and renewed calls for a public inquiry to look further into the deaths of some patients in the care of the trust. Regarding the latest report, Mr Moore said he was not convinced things had changed.

“It’s the same thing all the time, we’ve learned from this and learned from that and if they have to keep repeating that, then they haven’t learned,” he said. Mr Moore runs a Facebook group for patients and families and said comments posted suggest there are still issues with patient care.

He said some staff involved in cases were still working there and some had been promoted, arguing: “They shouldn’t even be working in healthcare. It doesn’t lay well with me at all and it’s the same with other patients and families.”

He also said he still has complaints against the trust but claims he has still not received a response to an email sent more than 80 days ago . “They try to put it to one side and hope I forget, but I won’t forget,” he said.

The Quality Account is a statutory report produced each year by the trust, outlining priorities and proposed improvements for the coming year. These include the introduction of a patient safety incident response framework aimed at learning from incidents and a new reporting and quality management system.

An organisational learning group, bringing together teams from different departments including nursing, patient safety and complaints has also be relaunched. New technology has been implemented in a bid to improve patient safety on wards while a new electronic patient record system known Cito was introduced in early 2024.

Recommended reading: 

Get the latest news, sports, and entertainment delivered straight to your device by subscribing to The Northern Echo here. 

A spokesperson from the trust said: “While the report is currently a draft, it shows we’ve continued to make progress in improving the quality of our services and the experience of patients and carers. We know there’s more to do but it’s clear that the changes we’ve already made are having a positive impact on the quality of our care.”

The report acknowledged there was further work to be done around training and response to complaints. “The backlog of serious incidents is highlighted as a ‘must do’, and we are committed to completing these in a timely way, with significant progress now made in reducing this,” it said.

The draft Quality Account will be considered by Middlesbrough Council’s People Scrutiny Panel on Monday, June 10, as part of a consultation. The final version is expected to be published by the end of this month.