An NHS trust and a ward manager face trial for manslaughter after allegedly failing to remove a method of suicide from a 22-year-old patient.
Alice Figueiredo, 22, died at Goodmayes Hospital, a mental health facility in Redbridge, northeast London, on 7 July 2015.
An investigation was first launched in 2016 and charges were brought in September.
Ward manager Benjamin Aninakwa, 52, was charged with manslaughter by gross negligence and an offence under the Health and Safety Act which alleges he failed to take reasonable care of the patients on the hospital’s Hepworth Ward.
The manslaughter charge alleges he breached his duty of care to Ms Figueiredo by “taking no sufficient steps” to remove a “means of suicide” or ensure an “adequate level of care and supervision” for her.
The North East London NHS Foundation Trust is charged with corporate manslaughter and an offence under section 3 of the Health and Safety at Work Act of failing to ensure the safety of non-employees.
The manslaughter charge alleges the organisation “caused the death of” Ms Figueiredo “by a gross breach of its duty of care”.
One of the particulars of the charge relates to an alleged failure to remove a method of suicide from use by her “even after their use attempted suicide on 18 occasions which were recorded on hospital ward notes and in other hospital records and discussed regularly at relevant hospital meetings”.
Representatives from the trust along with Aninakwa, from Grays, Essex, appeared at the Old Bailey on Wednesday for a hearing in front of Judge Rebecca Trowler KC.
They were not asked to enter pleas to the charges and the judge set an eight-week trial from 28 October next year at the same court.
Aninakwa was granted continued conditional bail ahead of a plea and case management hearing on 24 May next year.
