Wales | UKABIF

A man with brain injuries who took his own life did not receive proper support from health and social care services, a serious case review has found.

Forty-three-year-old Tom, who had sustained a brain injury in a car crash more than 20 years previously, was discovered dead at his Somerset home in June 2014. Since his accident he developed longstanding mobility, mental health and substance misuse problems. More recently he had been financially exploited.

Although Tom’s family requested help on numerous occasions the SCR notes that services consistently failed to take into account or assess his mental capacity, were not integrated and that no one took overall responsibility.

Many working in the field of acquired brain injury believe that if Tom had received proper clinical brain injury case management and had a robust approach to his mental capacity and rehabilitation needs he may well be alive and may well be in a far better place than he was left in for years.

The full review can be found by following this link

http://ssab.safeguardingsomerset.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/Tom-SAR-Final-June-2016.pdf