HEALTH bosses have issued an assurance that inpatient units for people suffering acute mental illnesses are safe following a stringent improvement programme.
Criticism over the way patients were assessed and cared for at Barrow's Dane Garth facility resulted in three Rule 43 letters - official warnings to the government - being issued by coroners in the area during 2013 and 2014.
They followed inquests into a series of deaths including that of 42-year-old Barrow father-of-one, Justin Forsyte, in 2012 who was released from the Dova Unit following a "substandard" assessment.
James Edward Boylan was found hanged in a Dova Unit bathroom in 2013 after then-coroner for south and east Cumbria, Ian Smith, claimed no-one on the unit had overall knowledge of his case resulting in his worsening condition going unnoticed.
And senior coroner for Cumbria, David Roberts, ruled mentally ill 24-year-old Millom resident John Jenkin had gone on to kill his mother Alice McMeekin, 58, and sister Katie Jenkin, 20, with an axe less than 48 hours after he was deemed of "zero risk" to himself and others during a 90-minute assessment at Dane Garth.
The situation was described as of "grave public concern" by Mr Smith in a letter to the Department of Health.
But those in charge of mental health services say a raft of improvements have now been implemented to make high standards of care the norm for every patient.
A spokesman for Cumbria Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, the body that runs mental health services in Cumbria, described the new processes as "robust", saying that the medication and housing needs of patients are now checked before they are discharged to increase levels of safety.
The spokesman said: "As a trust the safety of our patients is our overriding priority and since 2012 we have made significant improvements to the safety of our assessment processes with the emphasis on learning from previous incidents.
"The assessment process for our patients is now much more robust and provides better support for our staff.
"The ongoing admission process then includes a daily meeting of all clinicians and professionals involved in patient care to discuss each patient and their needs."
In 2013, then coroner for south and east Cumbria, Ian Smith, urged the Department of Health to consider an investigation of CPFT after voicing concerns that patients were being released too quickly from mental health units.
The government's standards in health watchdog, the Care Quality Commission, conducted inspections of services to check they were fit for purpose.
The trust is now rated as "requires improvement" after a comprehensive CQC inspection last year.
A CPFT spokesman said patients could have confidence that the care they receive at Dane Garth and other mental health units across the county is good.
He said: "We have also strengthened our procedure of monitoring action plans following investigations to ensure we have processes in place to enable us to learn from events in a positive and reflective way.
"We do this in an honest and open way which can include patients and family members, where appropriate, both in the process and in the sharing of our findings."
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