‘Immobile’ patient dies after discharge with no care package

An “immobile” patient was found dead after a trust discharged him home with no support and no means of calling for help, a coroner has found.

Samuel Brookes, who lived alone, was taken home from Russells Hall Hospital, run by The Dudley Group Foundation Trust, and left in his bed without access to his alarm or mobile phone.

John Ellery, the coroner for Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin, said in a Prevention of Future Deaths report sent to the hospital: “Mr Brookes was left unattended for two weeks until on the 22 April 2024 his grandson attended and found him unresponsive, wedged between his bed and the bedroom wall… When Mr. Brookes got into difficulty he could not raise the alarm or call for help.”

The coroner found the hospital had sent Mr Brookes home “without rearranging his required care” and there was “no record or documentation or process to show or demonstrate that the care had been rearranged”.

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Source: HSJ, 28 April 2025