HEALTH bosses have vowed to improve after a mentally-ill man was erroneously released back into the community just days before stabbing his father to death.
A Joint Domestic Homicide Review and independent mental health homicide investigation found the decision to discharge Jonathan MacMillan back into the community was ‘flawed’.
The review – commissioned by NHS England - insists that ‘no consideration’ was given to the potential risk to Jonathan and his family when he was released from the Cygnet Health Care unit in Maidstone, Kent on June 13, 2019.
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Five days later he stabbed his father at their home in Provincial Street, Barrow.
The review identifies a number of failures made by Cygnet in discharging Jonathan from the male Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU).
In particular, due to an administrative error, the expiry date of Jonathan’s sectioning was incorrectly logged as June 14 2019 instead of July 14 2019.
And Jonathan was still exhibiting concerning behaviours leading up to his release including: residual psychotic symptoms, patterns of increased hostility and risk towards his family following his sectioning.
The joint review found that Jonathan’s ‘inadequate discharge’ from Cygnet Health Care can be identified as the ‘significant service delivery issue that contributed to the homicide.’
A spokesman for Cygnet Hospital Maidstone said it had taken the necessary steps to implement the recommendations of the report.
He said: “We would like to offer our sincere condolences to John’s family and friends and express our deepest sympathy.
“We acknowledge the recommendations made in this report and since 2019 we have taken the necessary steps to implement them.
“Crucially, we remain focused on facilitating two-way communication with families and carers so their views are heard, acted upon wherever possible and that we are transparent about our holistic care planning.
“Our priority is to deliver the highest quality care and we are committed to working with our colleagues across mental health services to ensure learning from this tragedy is shared.”
A spokesman for the Lancashire & South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust – which took over the Cumbria Partnership NHS Foundation Trust in 2019 – said: “Firstly, we would like to extend our deepest sympathies to the family and friends of John MacMillan.
“Lancashire & South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust welcomes the Niche Joint Domestic Homicide Review findings and subsequent recommendations relating to the treatment and care of Jonathan MacMillan.
“We are committed to continually learning lessons and have undertaken significant improvement work since South Cumbria services were merged with Lancashire Care in October 2019, to form Lancashire & South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust. We will consider all the findings and recommendations and put any further actions in place as appropriate.”
A spokesman for NHS England North West said: “We would like to express our deepest sympathies to the family and others affected by this tragic event.
“NHS England is committed to the delivery of high-quality care for all patients and commissioned an independent investigation to look into all the issues surrounding the care and treatment of this service user.
“We will continue to work with the trust, the ICB, the provider and other partners to ensure the recommendations arising from the investigation have been implemented and result in an improvement in the care being delivered to patients.”
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