Prevention of Future Deaths reports · 2023

Mark McKessy

Regulation 28 report to prevent future deaths, reference 2023-0377, written 9 Oct 2023. A coroner writes one of these when an inquest reveals a risk that could cause further deaths unless something changes.

Date of report9 Oct 2023
Reference2023-0377
DeceasedMark McKessy
CoronerAlison Mutch
Coroner areaManchester South
CategoryAlcohol, drug and medication related deaths · Mental Health related deaths · Hospital Death (Clinical Procedures and medical management) related deaths
Organisation namedStockport NHS Foundation Trust
Sourcejudiciary.uk record · original PDF
Responses published1

The report

Text extracted from the PDF text layer. Reproduced verbatim, including the scan's own layout.

REGULATION 28:  REPORT TO PREVENT FUTURE DEATHS 

REGULATION 28 REPORT TO PREVENT FUTURE DEATHS 

THIS REPORT IS BEING SENT TO:  The One Stockport Health and Care Board 

1 

CORONER 

I am Alison Mutch, Senior Coroner, for the Coroner Area of Greater Manchester South 

2 

CORONER’S LEGAL POWERS 

I make this report under paragraph 7, Schedule 5, of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 
and regulations 28 and 29 of the Coroners (Investigations) Regulations 2013 

3 

INVESTIGATION and INQUEST 

On 24th  February 2023 I commenced an investigation into the death of Mark Anthony 
McKessy. The investigation concluded on the11th July 2023 and the conclusion was 
one of Narrative: Died from the complications of decompensated alcoholic liver 
disease when agencies had not effectively shared information or recognised his 
needs until shortly before his death. The medical cause of death was 1a) Multi-
Organ Failure; 1b) Pneumonia on a background of Decompensated Alcoholic 
Liver Disease; and II) Malnutrition. 

4 

CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE DEATH 

Mark Anthony McKessy had learning disabilities and care needs. He lived in the 
community. His regular and prolonged use of alcohol led to him developing alcoholic 
liver disease. He had limited capacity to understand the risks that this presented to him 
due to his learning disabilities. The significant threat his lifestyle and health issues posed 
to his life was not recognised by agencies. There was limited information sharing by 
agencies and no understanding of how his learning disability was impacting his health. 
As a consequence his health continued to deteriorate. He was admitted to Stepping Hill 
Hospital and was diagnosed with decompensated alcoholic liver disease. He 
deteriorated and died at Stepping Hill Hospital on 18th February 2023. 

5 

CORONER’S CONCERNS 

During the course of the inquest the evidence revealed matters giving rise to concern. In 
my opinion there is a risk that future deaths will occur unless action is taken. In the 
circumstances it is my statutory duty to report to you. 

The MATTERS OF CONCERN are as follows.  – 

The inquest heard evidence that he had significant leaning difficulties and his capacity 
was limited. He was known to agencies. Despite this the inquest heard evidence that 
steps to reduce the risks were not taken due to: 

1.  Poor communication/information sharing between agencies which meant that 
there was no coordination of care and no clear overview of his needs; and 

2.  A lack of recognition by agencies involved with him of his health issues and 

their inter relationship with his social care and learning disability needs including 
the extent to which he had capacity. This was compounded by limited Care Act 
assessments 

1 

 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 6 

ACTION SHOULD BE TAKEN 

In my opinion action should be taken to prevent future deaths and I believe you have the 
power to take such action. 

7 

YOUR RESPONSE 

You are under a duty to respond to this report within 56 days of the date of this report, 
namely by 4th  December 2023. I, the coroner, may extend the period. 

Your response must contain details of action taken or proposed to be taken, setting out 
the timetable for action. Otherwise you must explain why no action is proposed. 

8 

COPIES and PUBLICATION 

I have sent a copy of my report to the Chief Coroner and to the following Interested 
Persons namely 1) 
Council; and 3) Stockport NHS Foundation Trust , who may find it useful or of interest. 

 on behalf of the Family; 2) Stockport Metropolitan Borough 

I am also under a duty to send the Chief Coroner a copy of your response. 

The Chief Coroner may publish either or both in a complete or redacted or summary 
form. He may send a copy of this report to any person who he believes may find it useful 
or of interest. You may make representations to me, the coroner, at the time of your 
response, about the release or the publication of your response by the Chief Coroner. 

9 

Alison Mutch 
HM Senior Coroner 

09.10.2023 

2

Responses

1 response published against this report on judiciary.uk. A response is a body's written reply to the coroner's concerns; publication is at the discretion of the Chief Coroner's office, so an absent response does not mean nobody replied.

Response from Stockport Integrated Care Partnership (PDF)
ONESTOCKPORT 

Health and Care Board 

Stockport
Int egrated Care Partnership 

Private & Confidential 
Mrs Alison Mutch 
H M se·nior Coroner 
1 Mottram Street 
Mount Tabor 
Stockport 
SKl 3AG 

Dear Mrs Mutch 

Mark Anthony McKessy (RIP) 

11 December 2023 

1. ~!::",'":  2023 

HM CORONER 
MANCHESTER SOUTH 

I refer to the Regulation 28 Report issued following the inquest into the death of Mr McKessy and thank you for 
contacting the One Stockport Health & Care Board in regard to this matter. 
I  am  sorry  to  learn  of the  circumstances  of  Mr  McKessy's  death  and  would  ask  that  you  convey  sincere 
condolences to his family. 

In your report you highlighted two key areas of concern, for which I w ill provide a response as follows:-

A lack of recognition by agencies involved with him of his  health issues and their inter relationship with his 
social care and learning disability needs including the extent to which he had capacity.  This was compounded 
by limited Care Act assessments. 

Mr McKessy was registered at Cheadle Medical Practice who had regular contact with him . When he consulted 
with the practice he was a[ways supported by his parents. 

Records reflect that Mr McKessy received a Learning Disability Health Check on 24th January 2023 and fo llowing 
his  health  check  he was  seen  by  the  Care  Co-Ordinator.  A  role  linked  to the  practice  that provides  specific 
support  for  patients  with  a  learning  disabi lity,  he  was  also  referred  to  the Enhanced  Care  Management 
Team.  This team  is within the practice, and  is made  up of senior clinicians and safeguarding staff. The  role of 
the team is to review on a regular basis, complex cases to agree a way to best support the individual needs of 
the patient. 

Our enquiries into Mr Mckessy's support highlighted that whilst there is reference to Learning Disability Reviews 
and  regular contact with Mr McKessy and his parents, the only forma l Learning Disability Health Check is the 
one in Jan 2023.  We would expect further health checks for Mr McKessy. 

Supporting the completion  of annual  health  checks for people with a  learning disability with the  health and 
socia l care  needs  is  through  a  programme of work with Stockport  Community Learning  Disability Team . The 
team  has  a primary  healthcare  facilitator  that  works  closely  with  GP's  and  other  primary  and  secondary 
healthcare se rvices. They support the reviewing of the Learning Disability Registers held by the GP practices and 

. 

Part of Greater Manchester 
Integrated Care Partnership 

Stockport Health and Care Board 
Floor 1 Stopford House, Piccadilly, Stockport, SKl 3XE 

 ONESTOCKPORT 

Health and Care Board 

Stockport
Integrated Care Partnership 

provide training to the GPs in relation to best practice regarding the health promotion for people with a learning 
disability. 

This  role  has  supported the uptake of the Learning Disability Annual  Health  Checks  with a completion  rate of 
92.4%  for  2022/2023  and  a current rolling  12-month performance  of 88.3%.  The  monitoring of the  learning 
disability registers  and  ongoing support around  annual  health  checks  in  the future  will  be  undertaken  by the 
new  primary  care  assistant  practitioners.  Performance  will  be  monitored  in 
locality  primary  care  teams  to 
ensure quality and completion and  is  reported through to The Greater Manchester ICS. 

Recognising  the  challenge  that  some  people  with  a  learning  disability  face  in  accessing  their GP,  there  is  a 
Learning Disability Care-Coordinator in  each  Primary Care  Network. This  role further supports individuals with 
a  learning  disability  accessing  their  GP  and  links  to  other  appropriate  services.  The  Primary  Healthcare 
Facilitators meet regularly with the Care  Coordinators to discuss individuals' circumstances and the service best 
to support them. 

The  NHS  provider,  Pennine  Care  NHS  Foundation Trust (PCFT)  have  recently appointed  a team of five  Primary 
Care Practitioners, one per borough; their role will be around supporting the offer and uptake of annual health 
checks (AHC) for people with a learning disability. The team are currently reviewing data to understand whether 
the registers include the right people who are eligible to receive AHC's and the offer and  uptake of AHC's. They 
are  looking  at  what  the  data  tells  us  in  relation  to  GP  practices  and  numbers  of  service  users  but  also 
demographics  such  as  gender,  age ,and  ethnicity to  identify where  we  may  need  to  increase  awareness  and 
engagement with specific-groups and  where we  may need  to  prioritise support to  practices  where there may 
be lower uptake. 

PCFT aims to develop an understanding around the impact of this new role and gain feedback from service users 
and  their carers and  have developed a feedback questionnaire (which  includes the Friends & Family Test) that 
will help in the development and adaptation of the offer in supporting service users. 

I hope this  provides some  reassurance to the work being undertaken  by  health in  respect  of people engaging 
with primary and  secondary health services.  We  appreciate for Mr McKessy more could  have been  done with 
the further completion of annual  health checks. 

In  respect  of Mr  McKessy's  contact  with  adult  social  care,  I  can  confirm  that  in  the  two  years  prior to  Mr 
McKessy's  death,  he  received  an  annual  Care  Act  review  of his  care  and  support  needs.  This  included  two 
assessments of his Care Act eligible needs; these took place  in June 2021 and January 2022. 

Mr McKessy was  living  independently with the  support from  a strong family  network and  received  low-level 
support from adult social care.  This was primarily to access  his local community for recreational purposes. 

Regrettably,  the  covid  pandemic  impacted  on  the  delivery  of  this  support  and  in  turn  on  Mr  McKessy's 
wellbeing.  The  two  assessments  completed  focused  on  the  presenting  issues.  At  the  time  this  was  for  Mr 
McKessy; securing support to manage his finances,  maintain his flat and  to access the community for shopping 
and  recreational activities. 

Part of Greater Manchester 
Integrated Care Partnership 

Stockport Health and Care  Board 
Floor 1 Stopford House, Piccadilly, Stockport, SKl 3XE 

 ONESTOCKPORT 

Health and Care Board 

Stockport
Integrated Care Partnership 

lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllli!IIIIIIZIYf21J 

We recognise there were missed opportunities at this time to fully  understand  his  situation and the impact of 
drinking on his  health and social  care needs. 

We  continue  to  improve  front  line  practice  to  ensure  our  frontline  teams  increase  their  knowledge  and 
confidence in  completing holistic assessments. To  ensure management oversite of individual assessments and 
reviews we  are  introducing peer discussions to strengthen social  work practice. The social  care and specialist 
learning disability health team are co-located to support a joined -up approach to interventions. This is  further 
supported  by  managers  across  social  care  and  health  meeting  on  a  weekly  basis,  using  the  forum  to  refer 
individuals for a multi-disciplinary and multi-agency approach. 

Following  Mr  McKessy's  passing,  analysis  of  our  current  offer,  from  both  social  care  and  health  is  being 
considered,  including  how we carry out assessments,  provide  advice,  our signposting for  individuals  and  our 
support provided  people who experience any element of substance mis-use.  This will  be a standing agenda at 
the PCFT Quality Meetings; this will support consideration to further information or training for staff is  required, 
whether we have appropriate information and resources to share with individuals and/or their carers. 

Regarding  Mr  McKessy's capacity to make decisions about his  healthcare  needs, this was regularly considered 
and  assessed  by  his  GP.  Records  reflect that on each occasion that capacity was cons'idered,  he was found  to 
have  capacity to make  decisions  about  his  healthcare and  any  referrals  made  on  his  behalf.  The  last referral 
processed for Mr McKessy was to gastroenterology in October 2022. The option of a Power of Attorney (Health) 
was discussed and left as a matter for  Mr  McKessy's consideration. 

Poor communication/information sharing between agencies which meant that there was no co-ordination of 
care and  no clear overview of his  needs. 

Although there was activity at a GP  practice  level to share information and ensure escalations to any concerns 
were discussed. There were further opportunities to join up information to support a more holistic approach to 
Mr McKessy's support. 

All  Stockport GPs  use the Emis  Clinical  system, including our community and out of hours services. This means 
that community and  out of hours services directly accessing individual  patient clinical  records.  At the current 
time,  Pennine  Care  NHS  Foundation Trust cannot directly access  a  patient's full  clinical  history.  I can  confirm 
that there  is  ongoing  work  within  Greater  Manchester  to  extend  sharing  of  information  across  healthcare 
services. 

To  support  further  learning  and  the  embedding  of  this  learning  from  Mr  McKessy's  experience  Stockport 
Safeguarding Partnership are linked with the  LeDeR  Review process. 

There will  be a joint learning event in January 2024 in  relation to Mr McKessy's  life  and death. All  the agencies 
involved  in  supporting  people  with  a  learning  disability  in  Stockport  will  be  in  attendance  and  agree  a  joint 
action plan to further strengthen information sharing and improvements to practice. We will  also liaise with Mr 
McKessy's  family,  if  they  wish  to  be  involved,  to  share  their  experiences  of  the  health  and  social  care 

Part of Greater Manchester 
Integrated Care Partnership 

Stockport Health and Care  Board 
Floor 1 Stopford House,  Piccadilly, Stockport, Sl<l  3XE 

 ONESTOCKPORT 

Health and Care Board 

Stockport
Integrated Care Partnership 

interventions. Once agreed; I would welcome sharing this with you w ith updates from actions to provide further 
assurances. 

I hope the above information is helpful to Mr McKessy's family.  We continue to enhance the offer to people 
with a learning disability in Stockport and are committed to the development of accessible, person centred, co-
ordinated care for people w ith a learning disability in Stockport and across Greater Manchester. 

· Yours  sincerely 

Chief Executive and Place Based Lead 

~ '· 

1·, 

r  2023 

HM CORONER
MAN CHESTER SOUTH 

Part of Greater Manchester 
Integrated Care Partnership 

Stockport Health and Care  Board
Floor 1 Stopford House, Piccadilly, Stockport, SKl 3XE

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