‘We were certain someone would lose their life, yet our pleas went unheeded.’ This is the haunting recollection of Laura Kenny regarding her friend, Christie Harnett. Both young women were undergoing treatment at a mental health facility in Middlesbrough when Christie ultimately took her own life. According to Laura, she and fellow patients had repeatedly voiced concerns about the quality of care they were receiving. The unit was later characterized by an independent investigation as “chaotic and unsafe,” but Laura asserts that these warnings were ignored by staff and management.

Warning: This article contains distressing details and references to suicide and self-harm.

“We were raising the alarm with everyone,” Laura stated. “We sent letters to every authority we could identify, declaring that one of us was going to die.”

Christie Harnett, who was 17 at the time of her death, was not an isolated case. She was one of three young women who died by suicide within a span of several months while under the care of the Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust (TEWV). The trust provides services across North Yorkshire, County Durham, and Teesside. In recent weeks, the BBC has interviewed more than a dozen former patients, both adolescents and adults, who allege significant deficiencies in the standard of care provided by TEWV. Additionally, the families of individuals who died outside of hospital settings, though still within the trust’s jurisdiction, have shared their accounts.

Among those who died are Nathan Evison, who took his own life in 2019 at the age of 19, and Laurent McNamara, who passed away last year. These cases share common themes: a reported lack of empathy from staff and a notable absence of effective therapeutic interventions. Many former patients and families now fear that systemic errors continue to occur.

Driven by these experiences, hundreds of patients and families have campaigned for a public inquiry. Although a statutory inquiry was announced last December, stakeholders express frustration over the slow progress in its establishment. Despite assurances that answers would be provided by the end of February, a meeting held on March 31 with the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) yielded no clarity regarding the inquiry’s leadership, timeline, or location.

Alistair Smith, representing the affected parties at Ison Harrison Solicitors, told the BBC: “While our clients understand that such processes require time, there is concern regarding the ongoing care provided by a trust under scrutiny. The lack of concrete developments over the past three months is worrying.”

In response, a DHSC spokesperson stated that the department is working “at pace” to appoint an inquiry chair. “We are committed to ensuring that the voices of patients and the families affected by failures [at TEWV] are central to this inquiry,” the spokesperson added.

This upcoming inquiry will supersede a previous independent review commissioned by NHS England, which published its primary findings in 2023. That earlier report focused heavily on the deaths of young patients, including 17-year-old Christie Harnett, 17-year-old Nadia Sharif, and 18-year-old Emily Moore. The 2023 report validated patient allegations of excessive and inappropriate physical restraint, confirmed that staff were instructed not to intervene during self-harm incidents, and revealed that management tolerated these failures.

Although TEWV issued an apology and claimed to have implemented significant improvements, bereaved families and former patients argue that three years later, the lessons from these tragedies have not been internalized. They believe that vulnerable individuals have been severely failed by the system.

While former patients and families welcome the new statutory inquiry—citing its greater depth, legal powers to summon witnesses and documents, and focus on preventing recurrence—their core desire remains simple: to understand what went wrong and to achieve a measure of justice for their loved ones.

TEWV declined to provide an interview and stated it would not comment on specific cases. However, Alison Smith, the trust’s chief executive since last September, issued a statement promising that the organization would “co-operate fully with the public inquiry with honesty, openness, humility, grace and kindness.”

Source: BBC News Generated at: 2026-05-26 21:18:44 UTC