Disclaimer: Northumbria NHS is not an attack on individual clinicians or institutions. This post exposes severe system neglect and patient safety violation. I am raising in the public interest to ensure that no one is left at risk in this way again. I am campaigning for urgent patient safety reform.

Trigger Warning: This blog post about Northumbria NHS heavily discusses suicide and mental health neglect, which some readers may find distressing. If you are struggling with your mental health and need support, there is a list of helplines at the bottom of this post. Please reach out for help if you are struggling. You are not alone.

In this blog post, I show a bottle of whisky that Northumbria NHS gave back to me after I survived a suicide attempt. The purpose of this is to expose severe systemic mental health neglect, not to promote self-harm.

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Summary

After surviving a fatal suicide attempt on February 7th, 2025, I experienced a critical and mind-shattering patient safety incident at Northumbria NHS that has left me profoundly shaken and vulnerable. This incident also raises serious questions about patient safety within mental health crisis care.

Context to Incident

On 7th February 2025, I attempted to take my life. This was the result of enduring twelve years of institutional harm and systemic neglect spanning across 19 NHS trusts, two local authorities, and a GP practice. The weight of it was too heavy to carry alone. So, I tried to commit suicide.

I sadly tried to end my life using a combination of Paracetamol, sleeping tablets and whisky. I passed out on a golf course in coastal Northumbria. As I understand it, two passers-by found me unconscious on a golf course and called an ambulance, which took me to Cramlington Emergency Care Hospital. I woke up in A&E twelve hours later. A nurse was yelling at me, saying that I was “lucky to be alive”. My conscious state is listed as “Glasgow Coma Scale 13” in my medical records.

The medical teams administered IV NAC for 48 hours.  After 48 hours of treatment, the medical team confirmed that I had not incurred any damage to my organs and that I was ‘fit for discharge’.

Mental Health Assessment

Although I was physically fit for discharge, I was in a highly vulnerable mental state. I was still suicidal and confused and disorientated. The crisis team and psychiatric liaison team from Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Trust (CNTW) assessed me. They concluded that I was still at risk and that they thought I required an inpatient hospital admission to a mental health unit.

CNTW informed me that TEWV (Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys Trust), my home mental health trust, was in the process of arranging an inpatient bed for me at Cross Lane Hospital.This is the audio from Nothumbria NHS, confirming an inpatient bed was being arranged by TEWV.

I didn’t believe this because the CMHT in Malton had discharged me in 2024, and they had refused a referral from the psychiatric liaison team five months later.

CNTW would not give me any concrete details about this admission. I repeatedly requested clarity from them about this bed, but they told me that TEWV would ‘call me later’. Northumbria NHS told me to make my own way back to Yorkshire. Neither CNTW or Northumbria NHS offered me any transport: ambulance or taxi to get back to Yorkshire. They gave me the discharge summary, which stated that TEWV was arranging an inpatient bed for me. They also made it clear to me that they had no further responsibility for my care.

However, there was no bed. TEWV told me later on the phone that they were not giving me any inpatient care, so Northumbria NHS misled me about that support.

Patient Safety Incident

When the ambulance brought me in to Cramlington Hospital, the ward took the bag from me with the remaining bottles of whisky and packets of paracetamol that I had used to try and end my life. As I was leaving the ward on Sunday, 9th February, the ward sister handed me back the carrier bag with a hospital sticker on it. In the bag were the two remaining bottles of whisky and the remaining packets of paracetamol that I had used to try and end my life two days earlier.

Northumbria NHS gave me back the whisky and the paracetamol that I had used to try and end my life: a fatal event that they had just spent 48 hours helping me to recover from.

I cannot communicate the shock I felt when I looked in that carrier bag. It was what their actions communicated. What Northumbria NHS was saying was, ‘Your safety and well-being are of no concern to us.’

Northumbria NHS offered me no transport and no local contacts. They offered me no directions and no concrete details of any follow-up care. And they handed me back the lethal substances that had led to me being found unconscious on a golf course and needing 48 hours of their emergency care. This incident was institutional abandonment and neglect at its most heinous.

This is what harm in healthcare looks like. This is what systemic abuse looks like.

Whitley Bay- The Spark

I found my way to a hotel in Whitley Bay, where I checked in for the night. Later that evening, I spoke to the crisis team at TEWV, who told me that there was “no inpatient bed”. Northumbria NHS “has got it wrong”, they said. This lie felt like a double betrayal. Either TEWV or Northumbria NHS had deceived me. I didn’t know which one. However, the fact remained that there was no inpatient admission for me, despite Northumbria telling me two hours earlier that there was.

They discharged me without any care and returned the lethal substances I had used to attempt to end my life. Is this what you call care? How could such critical errors and oversights go unchecked in an emergency care hospital?

February 9th, 2025, was the night that sparked the inspiration for my campaign. I couldn’t allow this level of abuse to happen to anyone else. And if I didn’t survive, I needed to create a paper trail documenting what had happened to me.

Mental Health Resources

If you are struggling and need help or support, please reach out to these organisations:

If you are in England:

Please call 999 if your need is urgent.

NHS 111 (option 2): Free 24/7 support available from trained mental health professionals.

Free phone Samaritans 116 123: Free 24/7 helpline for anyone in emotional distress. samaritans.org

Text SHOUT to 85258: Free, confidential 24/7 support via text with trained volunteers at giveusashout.org.

Mind – Call 0300 123 3393 or text 86463: Mental health information and support: mind.org.uk

Calm Zone (Campaign Against Living Miserably): 0808 585858: Open seven days a week from 5.00pm to 12.00 midnight.

National Suicide Prevention Helpline: 0800 587 0800

If you are in Scotland:

Breathing Space Helpline: 0800 83 85 87. Open Monday-Thursday 6.00pm-2.00am and weekends, Friday 6.00pm-Monday 6.00am

Scottish Association for Mental Health (SAMH): 0344 800 0550 or email info@samh.org. If you phone this number or email them, they will direct you to your local SAMH café where you can seek local peer support.

Photo Credits: Pixabay, Sam J Johnson and Shkraba Anthony on Pexels. Fawaz Buqammaz on Unsplash.