Inside the 'chaotic' hospital where teen spent final days

"Chaotic, scary and really, really intense" - Steph Smith's time working at Huntercombe Hospital was nothing short of harrowing.

- REBECCA THOMAS

And as a former mental health patient at the scandal-hit site in Maidenhead, she is better placed than most to make a judgement.

At just 19 years old, with limited qualifications and after just 10 days of training, Ms Smith was often the most senior person available when serious incidents, such as patients self-harming, occurred at its Thames ward, where she was responsible for caring for its most acutely mentally unwell children and teenagers.

Months after Ms Smith started working there, 14-year-old patient, Ruth Szymankiewicz, fatally self-harmed after she was left alone by another care worker who had been given just a day and a half’s training and was working under a fake ID.

Now, speaking out for the first time in an exclusive interview with The Independent and Sky News, care worker Ms Smith and nurse Ellesha Brannigan have lifted the lid on their time working at the hospital to reveal the “chaotic” and understaffed conditions on the ward where Ruth spent her tragic final days.

And former nursing director for the Huntercombe Group, Philip King, has also come forward to warn that the NHS and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) should have closed the hospital, formerly known as Taplow Manor, years ago.

Having spent time at Huntercombe as a patient, from June 2017 to March 2018, being treated for post-traumatic stress disorder and self-harm, Ms Smith took up a role as a care worker at the hospital in November 2021 in the hope she could help others. But the reality was very different.

“It was chaotic. It was scary and really, really intense,” she said. “We just seemed to be putting out fires constantly, and there was no real routine and nothing therapeutic. I didn't receive any supervision or any sort of support from management while I was there.