Brain injury unit cut staff prior to children's deaths

Frontline staff were cut at a flagship rehabilitation unit weeks before a child died when nurses failed to monitor her properly, The Independent can reveal.

- REBECCA THOMAS

The Children's Trust (TCT), a care home for disabled children in Tadworth, Surrey, has been criticised by coroners after three young patients, who had brain injuries and complex conditions that required either around-the-clock care or regular monitoring, died while under its care.

One of those children, Raihana Oluwadamilola Awolaja, 12, who was meant to be receiving one-to-one care, died in hospital after her breathing tube became blocked when she was left unattended for 15 minutes.

A coroner later found her death had been contributed to by neglect and ruled that “on the balance of probabilities, she would not have died at this time” had she been “appropriately observed” when the breathing tube became blocked.

Now, The Independent can reveal that the centre, which is the UK's largest brain injury rehabilitation centre for children, made staff redundant in the weeks before Raihana's death in June 2023 amid financial concerns.

According to accounts analysed by The Independent, the trust had “significant concerns” over its finances in 2022 and 2023. A report said that redundancies had been “unavoidable”, with a restructure which reduced overall staff numbers by 15 per cent completed by May 2023. Raihana died in June 2023 (Leigh Day)

At Raihana's inquest, coroner Dr Fiona Wilcox found there was “simply insufficient staff to provide constant one-to-one care” and that the nurses' gross failure to observe her was “compounded by the lack of sufficient staff on the unit where Raihana lived to provide proper 1:1 care”.

She found that, in practice, the one-to-one care provided for the young girl by the trust was one nurse to two patients, when parts of the daily work routine, such as breaks, meetings and handovers, were taken into account.