THE BOSS of a health trust which provides health care across East Hampshire, but failed to properly investigate the deaths of more than 1,000 patients has yet again refused to resign.
Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust chief executive Katrina Perry has faced repeated calls to resign as the trust failed to properly investigate the deaths of nearly 1,500 patients.
At a trust meeting in Winchester last Monday, Ms Percy said “lessons have been learned” but refused to stand down after offering more apologies.
The trust, which has “serious failings” according to a report, will now be monitored by the external health watchdog, Monitor.
It will provide “expert support to improve the way the trust investigates and reports deaths” of people with mental health issues and learning disabilities.
The deaths of patients in those categories occurred between 2011 and 2015; the issue was brought into the open last year in a report for NHS England.
Chris Lynch’s 30-year-old daughter Joanna, from Horndean, suffered mental illness and died in July 2014.
She called the trust repeatedly before her death to ask for help, said Mr Lynch.
He added: “There were all sorts of problems at the trust and some of them are systemic and institutionalised.
“We got let down because the system is largely ineffectual and there’s little or no communication.”
A Portsmouth inquest was told that a 44-year-old man from Petersfield with mental health problems took his own life after repeated requests for help were similarly ignored by the health trust. He was never diagnosed, the inquest heard.
Ms Percy “apologised unreservedly” in December for the trust’s failings.