The mother of a vulnerable teenager, who died after suffering a seizure while taking a bath at an NHS assessment unit, has expressed her shock that he was allowed to bathe behind a closed door. Connor Sparrowhawk, 18, who had a learning disability and epilepsy, was found by staff submerged in the bathtub at the unit in Oxfordshire and died later in hospital.
Speaking at his inquest, Connor’s mother, Sara Ryan, said when he was at home the teenager bathed downstairs with the door open and a family member speaking to him. “I would never have thought of leaving Connor alone in the bathroom for any period of time,” she said.
But the inquest in Oxford has heard that when Connor took lengthy baths at the Statt (short-term assessment and treatment team) unit at Slade House the door was closed and he was checked only every 15 minutes.
Ryan said she had only heard during the inquest that the door was closed and said she would have objected had she known.
Asked why she had not mentioned the need to observe Connor in the bath, she said it had not occurred to her to raise it with expert staff. She said it would have been like asking a school teacher taking children on a school trip not to “let them loose on a motorway”.
Sparrowhawk moved into the Statt unit, operated by the Southern health NHS foundation trust, in March 2013 after becoming aggressive, a jury at Oxford coroner’s court has been told.
On the morning of 4 July, he took a bath ahead of an outing. But the alarm was raised by a staff member who found Connor submerged in the bath, his face blue. Staff tried to resuscitate him but he died later.
Ryan told the inquest her son loved the transport operator the Oxford Bus Company and had been due to have a tour of their garages on the day he died.
Connor’s stepfather, Richard Huggins, said he had found the unit “bleak” and staff made them feel they were an “inconvenience”. But he said: “At no point did we think our son would die in a National Health Service specialist unit.”
Kieran Dullaghan, a nurse who worked closely with Sparrowhawk, was asked earlier in the hearing if he had carried out a risk assessment around the young man’s epilepsy and bathing. Dullaghan was advised by his legal representative not to answer the question.
The inquest is likely to conclude later this week.
