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A 14-year-old girl left alone to self-harm at a mental health hospital when she should have been under constant supervision was unlawfully killed, an inquest jury has concluded.<\/p>\n
Ruth Szymankiewicz was being cared for by a member of staff on his first shift who had fake ID at Huntercombe Hospital, near Maidenhead, Berkshire, on 12 February 2022.<\/p>\n
Ruth, from Salisbury, was unaccompanied for about 15 minutes and left alone to walk around the hospital and to her room.<\/p>\n
It was there that she was found unconscious shortly afterwards. She died at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford two days later.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
She was being treated for an eating disorder when she was moved to the failing hospital, which has since shut down, from October 2021.<\/p>\n
It was rated inadequate<\/a> and later requirements improvement<\/a> in two separate inspections by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) in 2021.<\/p>\n The jury found contributing factors to her death included insufficient training of staff and that her care was “not suitable nor conducive” to helping her recovery.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n She was also not prevented from watching “harmful material” online. Visiting arrangements in which only one family member could visit her at any time were also a contributing factor.<\/p>\n Her parents, Kate and Mark Szymankiewicz, a GP and surgeon respectively, made a statement outside Buckinghamshire Coroner’s Court in Beaconsfield. <\/p>\n Mr Szymankiewicz said his daughter was an “incredible, bright, friendly, loving and adventurous girl with a whole life of joy ahead of her”.<\/p>\n He added: “When at our most vulnerable as a family we reached out for help. <\/p>\n “We ultimately found ourselves trapped in a system that was meant to care for her, to help her, to keep her safe and instead locked her away and harmed her.”<\/p>\n Ruth’s mum added: “There is an empty space at our table, a silent bedroom in our home and a gaping hole in our family that will never be filled.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n