MENTAL HEALTH
Pattern of failure
A
MOTHER lost one autistic son to preventable suicide under Essex Mental Health Services and is now struggling through her grief to support his two younger autistic brothers.
Her years-long battle to get them help reveals a broken system that works in siloes and too often dismisses or even blames parents instead of listening to them. It also highlights, she says, the lack of accountability or willingness of the NHS and other services to learn from mistakes.
Lisa’s eldest son, Frank (not their real names), was 19 when he died in 2020, a week after being allowed to self-discharge from a psychiatric unit despite being extremely high-risk. He was one of more than 2,000 Essex NHS mental health services inpatients between 2000 and 2023 whose deaths are now being investigated by the Lampard Inquiry.