A 27-year-old man who killed himself in a hospital toilet after waiting nearly 24 hours to see a mental health professional was badly failed by the NHS, his mother has said.
Jamie Pearson was admitted to Blackpool Victoria hospital’s A&E department after taking an overdose of high-strength painkillers on 17 August.
His mother, Julie Knowles, said her son was left for hours in a “depressing” side room along with other patients, including one who was also suffering a mental health crisis.
Pearson, a self-employed joiner, had been experiencing paranoid delusions and was receiving treatment for acute psychosis when he was admitted to the hospital at about 7pm, Knowles said.
He was taken to a small treatment room and placed on a drip at about 1am to try to prevent damage to his liver, she said.
A patient who spent hours with Pearson in the treatment room said he had told her at about 4pm – 21 hours after being admitted to A&E – that he was “sinking”, and asked: “When are they going to help me?”
Knowles said “no one seemed to be doing anything” for her son, so she pleaded for him to be seen urgently by a mental health professional.
A nurse then “marched” over to Pearson and told him that he needed to finish his drip before he would be assessed, she said.
Knowles, a former foster carer, said the approach lacked compassion and empathy and that her son sank back into his chair and became more despondent. A fellow patient said he appeared deflated and was clearly desperate for help.
After nearly 24 hours in A&E, Pearson became more agitated and went to the toilet a number of times, his mother and the fellow patient said.
Then at about 6pm he went to the disabled toilet for a final time. He was found unresponsive by staff after Knowles called for help.
“If someone would’ve come to see him and say everything’s going to be alright that would’ve meant a lot to my son. But at no time did anyone come from the mental health team,” she said.
“He was in the right place. He wanted help. I know if he had been given some help he would’ve got better.”
Knowles said she was speaking out so that people suffering a mental health crisis would be treated with more urgency in A&E.
She said she was particularly concerned that vulnerable people had been placed together for hours in a small treatment room, which she described as a hellhole.
“It was horrific. He’d been sat there with all his dark thoughts and somebody else telling him about their tragic life,” she said.
“To place somebody in a chair with all those distressing thoughts, with other people in that same situation, it’s just an outrage.”
Knowles said her son had struggled with anxiety since he had been a teenager but that he was happy, popular and in a loving relationship.
She said his mental health plummeted after going on holiday with friends to Benidorm in June, when he took cocaine.
He returned to Blackpool early and was experiencing paranoid delusions and was convinced neighbours were surveilling their home, she said.
Knowles said she took her son to the Harbour psychiatric hospital, where doctors gave him medication to treat acute psychosis.
His condition worsened and he took an overdose of high-strength painkillers on the night of 17 August, shortly before he was taken to A&E.
Knowles said her son desperately wanted help: “The first think you think to say [to someone struggling with their mental health] is to reach out, but that’s what he did. We reached out and what did they do? Nothing.”
Pearson was an only child and lived with his mother, who described him as “the most caring, loving, kind person, with a heart of gold that would do anything for anybody”.
“That’s what’s so tragic,” she said. “When he needed that help himself he was badly failed and let down.”
An inquest into Pearson’s death is scheduled to take place in February. A fundraising page has been set up to help to pay for his funeral.
Chris Barben, the executive medical director at Blackpool teaching hospitals NHS trust, said: “This was and remains a particularly upsetting incident for everyone involved and our thoughts are firmly with Jamie’s family and everything they have experienced and continue to go through after losing him this way.”
Barben said the hospital was investigating the circumstances of the death alongside the coroner’s process and that “it doesn’t feel right to cut across this ... and comment or provide any further details”.
“I am sorry if this feels like we’re not sharing the information we have and I do want to assure this family and Jamie’s friends that we are co-operating fully with the coronial process and are hopeful the outcome will provide them with the information they need.”
• In the UK, the youth suicide charity Papyrus can be contacted on 0800 068 4141, or email pat@papyrus-uk.org; in the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org
