A vulnerable woman who lay dead in her flat for three years was "left to fend for herself" by social services despite police warnings, her family have said.
Laura Winham, 38, who was mentally unwell and had been provisionally diagnosed with delusional disorder, died after her disability benefits were cut off and she stopped buying food.
Her remains’ were found by her brother in May 2021, after the family asked police to break in. Ms Winham had cut off contact with her family in 2014 as her mental health worsened, and they believed that she was being supported by local services. Her brother Roy Winham tried to get back in touch with his sister after their father’s health worsened in January 2021.
Mr Winham said on Tuesday, following the conclusion of his sister’s inquest at Surrey coroner’s court: “Laura was clearly a person potentially at risk but she wasn’t deemed worthy of visiting. She was left to fend for herself, even her own diary entries illustrate she was unable to cope.”
Speaking in a statement read out by their solicitor Iftikhar Manzoor, the family said that a “huge opportunity” was missed in 2017, when police made a referral to adult social services about Ms Winham.
They said: “Laura and her family need a system that cared enough about a vulnerable person. Laura’s death must act as a catalyst for change”.
On 7th October 2017, Surrey Police sent a safeguarding alert to local support services, including the adult social care team, following a visit to Ms Winham’s flat.
The police were concerned that, while she appeared to be in good spirits, she did not have a phone, did not have a job, had little food or money, had no friends or family locally and did not know how to access services.
They sent an amber alert to Surrey council social services to investigate. The adult social services then attempted to phone Ms Winham, despite being told that she did not have a phone and Ms Winham being deaf. When they got no response they then sent Ms Winham a letter telling her to get in touch and with information about other services, such as local food banks.
When they received no reply, they closed the case just over two weeks later in November 2017. Ms Winham’s family believe that she died in November 2017 as she stopped ticking off days on her calendar, had stopped making her online food shops, and stopped writing in her diary.
In one diary entry from October 2017, Ms Winham wrote that it was a “whole month since my last food shop. I can’t believe I’m surviving this long”.
Assistant coroner Dr Karen Henderson concluded on Tuesday that there had been a “lost opportunity [by social services] to actively take steps to visit Laura to assess her needs, or to visit other organisations” such as her GP.
However, she found it was “not possible to conclude” that there was a connection between this mismanagement and Ms Winham’s death. She said it was “not open to the court to speculate whether Laura would have accepted help”.
Dr Henderson recorded an open conclusion, and said: “I cannot find that these lost opportunities materially contributed to her death”.
Dr Henderson told the court how the Department of Work and Pensions had cut off Ms Winham’s disability benefits when Disability Living Allowance was moved over to the Personal Independence Payment (PIP).
They sent Ms Winham a letter about the change in February 2016 and asked her to reapply for PIP, and sent a follow up letter the following month when they received no response.
Dr Henderson said there was a “lost opportunity to proactively investigate” why Ms Winham had not responded, but concluded it was “not possible to say that this lost opportunity would have changed the outcome”.
Ms Winham’s siblings Nicky and Roy urged the public to put themselves in their shoes in a statement released after the conclusion.
They said: “Imagine one of your loved ones, stood on a cliff edge and telling you that if you took one step forward towards them they would go over, but if you stepped back, they would stay. That was the position we were in.
“We wanted to help her and see her, but feared that if we didn’t respect her wishes, we would lose her.
“It was a tragic situation and we found ourselves having to make the extremely tough decision to hand her over to a secure unit so that she could get the help she needed.”
They said they “took comfort in knowing that she had her own home and was entitled to both living and housing benefits” and believed she would be “appropriately supported and monitored”.
The siblings “lived in hope” that they would one day be reunited with Ms Winham, but “sadly, that opportunity never came”, they said.
They added: “We were never able to get close to Laura again. Laura should never have lost her life to mental health and we hope no other family goes through what we have, trying to navigate the mental health service with no prior experience and certainly not enough support.”
They described Ms Winham as a “bright fun-loving, extremely caring and engaging girl with a beautiful infectious laugh and a cheeky sense of humour”.
