Inquest into death of Somerset teenager hears of lack of staff training

Healthcare assistant observing Cariss Stone at psychiatric unit said she had ‘loads’ of patients to watch

A healthcare assistant tasked with carrying out “five-minute observations” on a vulnerable teenager in a psychiatric intensive care unit has told a jury at the young woman’s inquest she had “loads” of patients to watch and had not received training on how to monitor them.

Cariss Stone, 19, who was diagnosed as having emotionally unstable personality disorder and considered at risk of self-harm, was found unresponsive in the bathroom of her room at the unit in Taunton, Somerset, and died two days later. A postmortem concluded the cause of death was hypoxic brain injury, cardiac arrest and asphyxia.