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Parents criticise daughter's care following overdose death

By Hugh Fort
May 24, 2012

The parents of a “multi-talented and beautiful” girl, who died after overdosing on her father’s medication, have criticised the care she received from mental health professionals.

Staff at Maidenhead Community Mental Healthcare Team defended their actions during an inquest into the death of Rachel Rayner, of Ashley Hill Place, Wargrave, last week.

Rachel’s father Adrian Rayner told the inquest at Windsor Guildhall last Wednesday and Thursday that he and wife Jane were unhappy with the team’s plans for their daughter’s care.

He said: “What needed to be done quickly wasn’t done, there was no urgency.”

Rachel, 19, who went to Bradfield College, near Reading, took the overdose of medication her father was on, on December 7, 2010, the inquest heard last week.

Parents' tribute to 'wonderful' Rachel Rayner

She had been suffering from serious mental health problems which became worse when she split up with her boyfriend and learned her community psychiatric nurse Hannah Pearce was leaving.

Rachel had been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder in August 2010 having been treated at The Priory clinic in London in 2009. The inquest heard her parents did not know what to do to help her, adding she “couldn’t cope with life” and “she was in a crisis”.

The inquest heard Rachel had a history of self-harming, which had led to hospital trips in the past, and that she had heard voices in her head telling her to do “stupid things”.

Rachel was registered with consultant psychiatrist Dr Bridget Gemal, who denied claims from Mr and Mrs Rayner that Rachel had decided to stop working with her because she thought she was a bully and that the treatment plan would not work.

Mr Rayner added: “There didn’t seem to be any compassion or understanding that I was the parent of a very sick child.”

Dr Gemal told Berkshire coroner Peter Bedford the team had suggested a course of dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT) might be best for Rachel.

However, she said the treatment could take “months or even years” to work and was dependent on co-operation from the patient, which she claimed the team did not get.

She said Rachel’s parents were provided with paperwork at the time, and that they declined face-to-face meetings on the situation.

In recording a narrative verdict, Mr Bedford said: “Miss Rayner’s parents had expressed dissatisfaction at the lack of their daughter’s progress, had questioned the diagnosis and the approach adopted by the psychiatrist and were seeking a second opinion at the time of her death.

“While Miss Rayner undoubtedly deliberately consumed her father’s medication, the evidence is doubtful as to intention as she was prone to impulsive behaviour without a sense of the consequences of her actions.”

After the verdict, Mr Rayner said he wants to work alongside the trust to stop other young people suffering in the same way.

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Doctors are useless at providing support so that people don't feel the need to kill or go to extremes. It is not the patient or their condition at fault, it's clearly the UKs pro-choice position that encourages the failure to invest in decent support services that's at fault. Mental health is complex but from personal experience it is not designed for the affected patient to access. Even the way it must be accessed relies on the ill person being of normal health, when clearly they won't be. The patient is blamed for the organisations failure to accommodate the fact that they are a very ill person, unable to communicate with them normally. Because the service fails to communicate with the patient & take into account their special needs, patients become frustrated & sometimes it may be viewed as non compliance. The agency then blames the patient as they have done here. Yet there is nothing that the patient or family could have done because if the parents had tried to force treatment they would have been told it was the patients legal right to refuse.

In my own case I can't even get to see any mental health professional, as they say I must phone to arrange an appointment. I never go out & don't use the phone or talk to people. I have tried several ways to communicate with the mental health service & let them know my difficulty. Informed my GP, sent an email to the mental health service & sent a self referral explaining the above & requesting contact via email. But I just get an email response requesting that I phone to make an appointment, which I can't do!

I feel so angry at the mental health services, they are unfit for purpose!

Lou Bellas, Eustace Crescent, Wokingham
26/05/2012 at 16:05

i sympathise with anyone who has mental health issues, and their loved ones, and don't doubt that some have had bad experiences.

I do think it's important to point out though, that very few mental health issues can be solved quickly - if at all...

Damiano_Tommassi, Wokingham
24/05/2012 at 17:29

What needed to be done quickly wasn’t done, there was no urgency.”

This saddens me. I have a relative who has had depression for years, the doctors just dont care.. So we took him to prospect hospital to be fobbed off yet again. He has not been given any therapy even though at one point it was a fortnightly thing to ask them why havent they sent the referral. Still to this day 6 years later still fobbing us off, wasting my national insurance contributions with someone who needs the therapy but cant access it and all they do is fob us off and offer him all different pills. I hope someone does something as i feel a terrible let down, and i can see how the above happened and not enough is done for mental illness. Just brushed under the carpet.