Matthew Caseby: Priory Healthcare fined over patient death failings

James Marsland, prosecuting for the Care Quality Commission, told Friday’s hearing that the case was being brought for the failings in Mr Caseby’s care, rather than that it caused his death.

He said other patients had escaped from the ward on previous occasions.

“There was a courtyard which service users were able to access,” Mr Marsland said.

“Part of the perimeter was a fence which at its shortest was 2.3m tall.”

The case centred on the firm’s failure to adequately assess the risk, amounting to a failure to provide safe treatment.

In a victim impact statement read to the court, Mr Caseby’s father Richard said his ability to grieve was stunted for years by Priory Healthcare’s attempts to “hide the facts” about his son’s death and “evade accountability for its gross failures”.

After the inquest in 2022, Priory Healthcare said: “We accept that the care provided at Woodbourne in this instance fell below the high standard patients and their families rightly expect from us and we fully recognise that improvements are needed to the service.”