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I was experiencing symptoms of Covid-19 and when I became unable to complete a sentence or walk to the bathroom, my GP advised me to go to hospital. I have mental health difficulties and one of the staff recognised me from when I had been admitted previously, following a suicide attempt. I felt that I was treated like a 'frequent flyer' of A&E and that my symptoms were taken less seriously than they would have been otherwise. I was sent home after my tests for Covid came back negative and was told that it was just anxiety. I got much worse over the coming days. If I had tested negative, why was I feeling desperately unwell with all the published symptoms of Covid? I thought that I should be physically active if I didn't have Covid-19, so I pushed myself and berated myself when I repeatedly became unable to breath with a pounding heart upon any exertion. I couldn't cope caring for my four children and was in a 'critical' dangerous mental state many times. I self-harmed to try and cut off from feeling so awful. My physical health deteriorated. The ambulance was called by the GP who had sent a nurse to assess my oxygen levels and the paramedic said I should be in a coma according to my obs. This made me feel less like I was making it up, but it was still in my head despite my husband telling me repeatedly that the results of the test are 30% wrong. The paramedic gave me oxygen and I protested strongly against going to hospital a second time. The paramedic insisted I went, put me on oxygen and reassured me he would ask the hospital staff to relate to me as a patient who was showing clear signs of Covid and that I did struggle with my mental health but that I was doing my best to recover. I also asked the paramedics to inform the hospital staff about my eating disorder so they could gently help me to manage my low blood sugar without judgements and causing me further shame. In the hospital I saw a Dr who confirmed that I did have Covid-19 and that my test must have been a 'false negative'. I had felt judged, dismissed and had doubted myself. The first thing anyone I spoke to asked was whether or not I had had a test and whether it was positive. The negative test result isolated me from calling family and greeting neighbours as I didn't have the energy to go into the false negative answer. I found that saying my test was 'negative' sparked a surge of invalidation of everything I was experiencing. The isolation caused me further significant harm to my mental health. Among other fleeting symptoms I have had overwhelming fatigue, breathlessness, sweats or chills, no smell or taste, a rash, headaches and low mood. After nearly four weeks I am slowly recovering. I am lucky to have a social worker, family support worker and psychologist available over the phone through this period, so I do feel my family and I are supported. But I am interested to know if anyone else has found their symptoms are being quickly dismissed as anxiety when they are sure they have the virus? Or if anyone else feels like they haven't had their symptoms taken as seriously because of their mental health difficulties?

What is the Skills and Support Toolkit? The online toolkit written by INQUEST, is an interactive resource that aims to build a range of skills, from organising information relating to the inquest, speaking in public, to handling media attention. Families have helped to create the skills toolkit, giving bereaved individuals the much needed support and ability to communicate their concerns and calls for change. "The Skills and Support Toolkit can provide you with practical advice needed to continue and maintain your day to day life at a time when even the simplest of tasks can seem insurmountable, or help you develop the skills needed to mount a campaign." - Mother of a child who died in prison.

What does the handbook cover? It includes advice and information on: What happens after a sudden death? Post-mortem examinations and the rights of bereaved people The process before and during an inquest, including when you may need legal advice and how to fund it Coping with a death and an inquest Contentious deaths in police and prison custody, immigration detention, mental health settings and deaths involving multi-agency failings or where wider issues of state and corporate accountability are in question Contacts of voluntary, government and professional organisations working on mental health, criminal justice and immigration issues. About INQUEST INQUEST is the only charity providing expertise on state related deaths and their investigation to bereaved people, lawyers, advice and support agencies, the media and parliamentarians. Their specialist casework includes deaths in police and prison custody, immigration detention, mental health settings and deaths involving multi-agency failings or where wider issues of state and corporate accountability are in question.

This thematic review presents a detailed analysis of claims made after an individual has attempted to take their life.Claims relating to completed suicide and attempted suicide are reviewed, regardless of whether the claim resulted in financial compensation. It identifies common problems with care and provides recommendations for improvement to support service delivery. Results The results are split into two parts. The first part analyses the problems identified from the clinical details of each claim and the second part analyses the quality of the serious incident reports. Part one identifies recurring clinical themes and areas for improvement. Five areas where there were common issues in clinical care are discussed in depth: substance misuse communication, particularly failures in intra-agency working risk assessment observations prison healthcare. Part two identifies four main areas of concern, where: There was a lack of family involvement and staff support through the investigation and inquest process. The quality of root cause analysis undertaken as part of the Serious Incident (SI) investigation was generally poor and did not focus on systemic issues. Due to the poor SI report quality, the recommendations arising from SI investigations were unlikely to reduce the incidence of future harm. Reports to prevent future deaths (PFDs) were issued to trusts by the coroner with little consistency and there were poor mechanisms to ensure that changes in response to the PFDs had been made or addressed the issues highlighted.

The report argues for a fundamental rethink about the use of prison and calls for a political boldness to implement evidence-based change. The vulnerabilities of young prisoners have been well documented by countless research, investigations and inquest findings, yet they continue to be sent to unsafe environments, with scarce resources and staff untrained to deal with their needs. Based on INQUEST's specialist casework with the families of the prisoners who died, the report found that: 83% were classified as “self-inflicted”. The highest number of deaths occurred in HMYOI Glen Parva (six) and HMP Chelmsford (four). A further casework sample of 47 young and child deaths also found that: 30% of those who died were care leavers or had suffered some kind of family breakdown which required them to live outside of their immediate family home. 70% had mental health issues and 49% had self-harmed previously. A critical concern is that prison establishments have not learned lessons from previous deaths in prisons; too many deaths occur because the same mistakes are made time and again. In the light of these concerns, this report considers the implications and reasons behind prison deaths since 2011. Lastly, the report stresses the need for new thinking and new strategies if such deaths are to be avoided in the future.

It highlights the findings from inquests that took place between January 2018 and April 2019, including that of Emily Hartley, Annabella Landsberg, Jessica Whitchurch, Natasha Chin, Nicola Jayne Lawrence and Sarah Maria Burke. Also included is updated statistics on the deaths in women's prisons, noting that there have now been 106 deaths (to 10 May 2019) since the 2007 Corston Review. To prevent deaths in women’s prisons, INQUEST is calling on government and parliamentarians, policy makers, practitioners and campaigners to recognise women’s imprisonment as a form of structural violence against women; honour international treaty obligations to safeguard vulnerable women and girls; and work together towards eradicating outdated and failing women’s prisons. Key INQUEST recommendations in the report: Redirect resources from criminal justice to welfare, health, housing and social care. Divert women away from the criminal justice system. Halt prison building and commit to an immediate reduction in the prison population. Review sentencing decisions and policy. An urgent review of the deaths of women following release from prison. Ensure access to justice and learning for bereaved families. Build a national oversight mechanism for implementing official recommendations.

The new research maps the provision of safer custody telephone lines across the prison estate - dedicated phone lines which enable family members and others to pass on urgent information when they have concerns. It finds that provision is patchy, under-resourced and even non-existent in some prisons, leaving families struggling to share their concerns with prison staff. The report reveals that: Almost two in five (37%) prisons in England and Wales appeared to have no functioning dedicated safer custody telephone lines for families to get in touch. Of these, nearly one in five prisons (18%) had no publicly advertised number for a dedicated safer custody telephone line. A further 18% of prisons advertised a dedicated line, but when called the number either wasn’t operational, was not answered, or went through to a general prison switchboard. Of the 75 dedicated safer custody telephone lines that went through to safer custody departments, only 13 (17%) were answered by a member of staff. Over 80% of dedicated safer custody lines that went through to safer custody departments (62 prisons in total) put the caller straight through to an answer machine.

The report makes the following recommendations: National review: the government should proceed with its national review of deaths of people on post-release supervision in the community following a custodial sentence to establish the scale, nature and cause of the problem. Data: more detailed and accurate data should be made available along with regular reporting to the Minister responsible and Parliament alongside the publication of an annual report. Investigations: deaths of people on post custody supervision should be investigated by an independent body with adequate resources allocated to allow this to happen. There needs to be a threshold for this with a range of factors taken into account. Improve scrutiny and learning: the Government needs to confirm oversight at a local and national level.