'Nothing can ever make up for Lauren's death... it is now vital that lessons are learned'

Mum's plea after inquest into mental health tragedy concludes

- CHRIS SLATER

ON the evening of February 24, 2022, Lindsey Bridges received the first of two phone calls which will haunt her forever.

Her daughter Lauren was on the line. Adored by her friends and family - kind, considerate and 'the most beautiful person inside and out' Lauren wanted to go to university and dreamed of becoming a doctor or a nurse so she could help others.

But the bitter irony is that, in her mother's words, she was horribly failed by the mental health system.

Lauren, 20, was autistic and had been diagnosed with a personality disorder. There were fears for her safety as her mental heath worsened and she was transferred to a psychiatric hospital in Stockport.

The secure intensive care unit at The Priory's Cheadle Royal Hospital was more than 250 miles away from her family in Bournemouth, on the south coast.

It was her ninth stint in hospital in under four years. A number of those placements were a significant distance from home.

It was meant to be a short-term placement. Yet seven months later, she was still there. Lauren was distressed at being so far away from home for such a long time.

During the call to her mother, Lauren sobbed, begging and screaming for help and to be taken away from the facility.

Hours later, Lindsey received another call. Lauren, she was told, had been found unconscious in her en suite bathroom.

"As soon as I saw the phone ring in the middle of the night, I just knew something had happened to Lauren, Lindsey said.

She had suffered a cardiac arrest, after having apparently tried to hang herself, and had been rushed to Wythenshawe Hospital.

Lindsey and her family frantically made the six-hour journey to south Manchester to be at her bedside.

"Those hours travelling to be with her and then in hospital will stay with me forever," she said. On February 26, the family had to make an unthinkable decision.