Antony was taken by ambulance from his home address to Southend Hospital on Friday 3 July after experiencing tachycardia while going in and out of psychosis.
He was discharged at 11:58 pm that same night, despite still being mentally unwell, and CCTV later showed him wandering around the Southend Hospital car park throughout the night until he eventually wandered off the premises at 8:40 am on Saturday.
By midday on Saturday 4 July, he was officially reported missing to the police. Later that afternoon, at around 5 pm, I (his brother Jake) found him in a state of full psychosis. With the help of police and ambulance crews, he was taken to Basildon Hospital, where staff assured us he would be shadowed and sectioned for his safety.
However, at 6:40 am on Sunday 5 July, a new duty doctor discharged him, deeming him fit, even though he remained actively psychotic, had no phone, money, or bank cards, and was also suffering from a strangulated hernia. A nurse had acknowledged over the phone that he was still not mentally well, but said there was nothing she could do.
This isn’t just an isolated glitch — it’s the exact kind of failure that makes people lose trust in a system that’s supposed to protect the most vulnerable. When you watch someone you love being passed around, discharged, dismissed, and left unsafe, it’s not just stressful; it’s traumatising. And it leaves you with a very human reaction: this system is not working for us.
This is a system that didn’t recognise risk, doesn’t recognise psychosis, doesn’t recognise lack of capacity, doesn’t recognise medical emergency, doesn’t recognise missing‑person vulnerability, and didn’t recognise basic safeguarding obligations.
That’s not me being dramatic. That’s the system failing at the most basic level, and the way mental health crises are handled is unacceptable.
How on earth was he discharged twice while in psychosis? That’s a complete failure of duty of care. He was a missing person, medically unwell, and clearly not safe. Any competent clinician should have recognised that.
The fact he had a strangulated hernia and was still discharged is unbelievable. That’s not just bad practice — that’s dangerous.
Hospitals keep saying they’re overwhelmed, but that doesn’t excuse releasing someone who can’t even tell you where they are, and this is heartbreaking. Families shouldn’t have to fight this hard just to keep someone alive and safe.
Mental health services need reform. This isn’t an isolated case — it’s happening everywhere.
I’m actually speechless. How can a hospital let someone in full psychosis just walk out like that? And I can’t wrap my head around this. A strangulated hernia and psychosis — and they said he was fit? That’s terrifying.
How did two different hospitals both think this was acceptable? It doesn’t make sense, and I’m stunned. He was wandering around a car park all night, and they still didn’t intervene?
Allowing a vulnerable patient to wander hospital grounds overnight without intervention raises significant questions about risk management and duty of care, and the sequence of decisions made in this case appears to fall significantly below the standard of care expected under statutory and common‑law duties. The repeated discharge of a vulnerable adult in active psychosis is deeply concerning.
The failure to conduct or document a capacity assessment, particularly in the context of psychosis and a recent missing‑person report, represents a potential breach of the Mental Capacity Act 2005, and allowing a patient with a strangulated hernia to leave hospital without treatment may constitute a failure to provide basic medical care, potentially amounting to clinical negligence.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 