Sir James Munby has approved a place in a secure mental health unit for a suicidal 17-year-old girl who made repeated, determined efforts to kill herself, following his earlier outspoken warnings that plans to release her into the community would leave ‘blood on our hands’.
The care plan includes new funding for a three-to-one staff ratio. Sir James, the president of the family court, spoke out last week about ‘the disgraceful and utterly shaming lack of proper provision’ that left the vulnerable teenager without a secure bed, in In the matter of X (a child) (No 3) [2017] EWHC 2036 Fam.
The girl, X, had been detained in a secure unit following a youth court order and was due to be released back into the community this month. However, staff at the unit believed she would kill herself within days if she was sent back to a community setting, particularly her home town. There was a six-month waiting list for a place in one of England’s 124 places in low secure units. The secure unit, where X had been housed, had struggled to cope with her needs.
Speaking after a bed had been found this week, Sir James said NHS England might not have been as ‘speedily effective’ without his criticism.
‘The provision of the care that someone like X needs should not be dependent upon judicial involvement, nor should someone like X be privileged just because her case comes before a very senior judge,’ he said, in In the matter of X (a child) (No 4) [2017] EWHC 2084 Fam.
‘I emphasise this because a mass of informed, if anecdotal, opinion indicates that X’s is not an isolated case and that there are far too many young women in similar predicaments. How are they to be protected?’
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