Woman refuses to answer questions over patient death

A healthcare assistant who worked at a mental health hospital in Nottingham refused to answer numerous questions relating to the death of a vulnerable woman.

An inquest at Nottingham Coroner's Court is examining the death of Louise Furlong, who died on 12 September 2022 at the Queen's Medical Centre (QMC) in Nottingham.

The jury has been told the 19-year-old was found the previous evening in her room at Highbury Hospital, where she was being held under Section 3 of the Mental Health Act.

Sylvia Quaye-Mensah claimed she was not given a proper induction when starting work at the hospital, and declined to say if she was seen on CCTV not performing checks she had recorded.

Quaye-Mensah declined to answer 45 questions while giving evidence on Wednesday, as well as a further 31 questions on Thursday.

Among those questions were whether she accepted she walked past the deceased's bedroom once in the 35 minutes of the hour she was due to make observations, if she accepted she did not look through the window in the bedroom door while walking past, and if she accepted the CCTV evidence.

The inquest was told Quaye-Mensah, who held a master's degree in economics, had previously worked at a hospital in Derbyshire before arriving to work at Highbury via an agency.

Her CV was shown in court, which said her responsibilities had included checking on patients, maintaining their safety and ensuring accurate records were kept.

When questioned about the nature of checks carried out at her previous employment, Quaye-Mensah - who answered with the aid of a Polish interpreter - said she always ensured any checks she recorded followed physical observations she had made.

"Personally, I always check a patient by seeing that person before I put anything in the notes, because even though sometimes our instructions would be different, I always thought one needed to see a patient physically," she said.

On arriving to work at Highbury, Quaye-Mensah said she was not provided with a copy of Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust's observations policy, and said she "didn't think" she understood what it meant to be detained under the Mental Health Act at the time.

When the court was shown a document claiming an induction had been carried out on 2 September 2022, she said it did not match with her recollections, adding she was only given a limited tour of one ward on her first day.

"I didn't receive the induction," she said through the interpreter.

"The only thing that was shown to me was where the toilets [were] and the emergency exit."

The jury heard Quaye-Mensah had been to the QMC with a colleague and a patient on the morning of 11 September before returning to Highbury.

She was due to carry out observation checks on Furlong - referred to as Lou-Lou in court - for an hour-long period that evening.

The court heard numerous checks had been recorded on an iPad-like machine between 18:05 and 19:01 BST, with two claiming the deceased was "co-operative and calm" and another four reporting her to be "asleep and breathing".

However, CCTV footage shown to the jury appeared to show Quaye-Mensah with the iPad in the communal area at some of the recorded times rather than at her bedroom.

When asked if she was seen on CCTV in the communal area, if she had made "false entries" into the record or if she accepted she had not carried out the necessary checks at the required times, she declined to answer, which is allowed under rule 22 of the Coroners (Inquest) Rules 2013 protecting witnesses from incriminating themselves.

The inquest heard Furlong was found unresponsive in her bathroom with a ligature around her neck at 19:09, leading to an emergency response and her transfer to the QMC.

The inquest continues.

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