25/02/2014 BBC Oxford News

Good evening. The death of an Oxfordshire teenager, who was being

cared for at Slade House in Headington, was "preventable".

That's the finding of an independent report into his care. 18`year`old

Connor Sparrowhawk died after being found unconscious in the bath at

Slade House last July. His mother says its been a long and distressing

fight to get the facts out in the open. Adina Campbell reports. Connor

had autism and epilepsy which meant he often suffered with seizures and

also had problems learning. He was initially admitted to Slade House as

an emergency case, but was later sectioned under the Mental Health

Act. On one occasion, when his mother went to visit him at the

unit, she thought he'd had a seizure. From then on, his

night`time checks were increased. In June last year though his team

agreed that hourly checks were enough because Connor was showing no

signs of having a seizure. But a few weeks later, on the 4th July, Connor

was found dead, 15`minutes after he'd been checked by staff. He was

found submerged in the bath. He died later the same day. The findings of

this new report outlines staffs' poor decisions around his care, in

particular the agreement to make 15`minute observations of his baths.

It also found the level of observations failed to safeguard

Connor. There were concerns too about the lack of somebody having

overall responsibility for his care. The report also discovered that

Connor's parents were not spoken to enough by staff. This isn't the

first time Slade House has been in the spotlight. A report last autumn

criticised its facilities saying there were dirty toilets, outdated

equipment and medicines weren't given out safely. An emergency team

has been brought in to run the unit after that inspection by the Care

Quality Commission. Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust says they are

"deeply sorry" that Connor died whilst in their care and they failed

to undertake the necessary actions required to keep him safe. They say

they are wholly committed to learning from this tragedy in order

to prevent it from happening again. Helen McCormack is from Southern

Health NHS Foundation Trust, I asked her what lessons have been learnt.

We want to be able to use the findings of this report to improve

our services, right across the Trust, so that we can be confident

that we learn from this, not only in that unit, but for all of our

services. Quality care commission review happened, as I understand it,

eight weeks after Connor Sparrowhawk's death, wasn't his

death enough for you to put these procedures into place? Yes. We've

asked ourselves that question too, why was it that the CQC found things

in our services that we should have found for ourselves. The what we did

in the immediate period, as you might understand, is report the

incident to the police. We then waited for a period of time while

the police decided whether they needed to proceed with any

inquiries. I think what that did was to put in a delay, which meant that

we had waited for that before starting on our investigations. With

hindsight, there were things that we needed to be addressing

straightaway. Those were the things that CQC highlighted when they came

into the use. Connor's mother said she had to fight to get this far. Do

you think that is vieth and do you think that is fair? I can sympathies

with her position. This is a very distressing situation for which

we're deeply sorry that this happened, but also that this process

has been so protracted. We have commissioned an independent

investigation in order to try and make sure that for her she feels

that we have looked at this thoroughly and we haven't put any

bias into place. I do understand it's been a very protracted process.

I can see for her it's incredibly frustrating and distressing. We want

to be able to do anything we can to work with her and try and move

forward and to help her to move on. OK. Thank you very much for joining

us. Thank you. You can hear Connor Sparrowhawk's mothere giving her

first broadcast interview with Phil Gayle on BBC Radio Oxford tomorrow

morning on 95.2FM. More needs to be done to tackle

loneliness amongst rural communities in our region. That's the finding of

a new study in the Cotswolds which claims better transport and better

access to services are needed to help an aging population. Charlotte

Stacey reports. Audrey is 87, she lost her husband two years ago and

now lives on her own. She is still active and makes an effort to have

something to do each day. I think you can get very depressed if you're

not careful. Everybody said to me, when I lost your husband ` you must

now get on with your life. The it sounds terrible, but it's true. You

can't sit at home and mope. I still want to go to the WI and Youth 3A

and things like that. Getting around in rural areas like the Cotswolds

can be a problem. There are more than 24,000 people passed retirement

age in the Cotswolds, that is nearly a third of the local population. The

area has an older Popp layings with a longer life span than the national

average. GPs do say people are actually coming to them, they are

not actually ill, they are lonely and like to talk to somebody about

their problems. A visit costs ?25. If we send in a village agent or one

of the people who befriend you, it's ?5 per visit. The person doesn't pay

that, we have funding to do that. For little cost it has huge

benefits. Has been shown to be worse for your health than smoking 15

cigarettes a day. Tackling it makes financial sense too. With an older

population growing year`by`year, the council is looking at ways to combat

loneliness in the long`term. A crocodile, seized by police in

Sweden, has been given a new home in Oxfordshire. The two`and`a`half

metre reptile was found by police in a green house in Sweden during a

raid. At the moment its being held in quarantine in Witney, but will

eventually be moved to the Crocodiles of the World attraction

at Brize Norton. In tonight's League One football, MK Dons won 2`1 at

Oldham, but a late equaliser denied Swindon a win over Crawley,it

finished 1`1 at the County Ground. That's it from us for now. The

weather is coming up, starting with the regional forecast from Alexis.

From the late news team here, goodnight. Goth goth A really quiet

night tonight. There is a risk we could have the odd shower. It will

be mainly dry for most places and a chance of patchy frost The. Will be

fairly light with that risk of a frost first thing tomorrow morning.

A dry start to the day for most. We will see increasing cloud through

the day tomorrow bringing the chance of an isolated shower. They will be

very isolated. Temperatures up to nine or ten Celsius. The winds light

to moderate from the South West. Showers is the regime really for the

rest of the week. There will be a band of rain tomorrow night. Stay

tuned, coming up next is the national weather forecast.

showers, Buster once. Then it is more difficult. Susan Powell is here

to explain more international focus. Take a glimpse out of the window and

the chances they will be starry skies where you are. The showers we

have today are dying back to the coast. The breeze is also easing and

reclaiming skies and light winds, it will be chilly overnight tonight.

The wind will remain keen enough to hold the frost that bay and in the

far north-west, bringing in some showers, if going down to