Health board slammed by dead woman’s family

Health board slammed by dead woman’s family 25/4/14

The family of a Western Isles health worker who drowned in a loch after losing control of her car in a wild storm has hit out Western Isles NHS for allegedly failing to protect staff working on their own.

Lorna was on duty in her job as a speech therapist for Western Isles NHS as she drove towards Horsacleit in Harris when her Mazda car plunged into Loch nan Uidhean on Thursday 24 November 2011.

Severe weather played a role but the actual reason for her car leaving the road will never be known agreed the three parties - the family, Crown and Western Isles NHS - involved in the inquiry.

The family said Lorna was a safe and cautious driver and would not have been driving too fast for the conditions.

They highlight the factors could be the car sliding off a flooded road, swerving to avoid a sheep or Lorna mistakenly hitting the throttle instead of the brake when faced with some unknown danger as she rounded the corner.

Witnesses had described the weather as horrendous with heavy, gusting winds, torrential rain and roads covered in water.

The 26-year-old of Cross Street, Stornoway, was in the car in the loch for over forty minutes after the emergency services arrived on the scene.

At the reconvened inquiry in Stornoway Sheriff Court on Friday, solicitor Angus Macdonald slammed the health board for failing their duty of care to Lorna.

Given the bad weather that often prevails in the Western Isles, the health board should have had a specific policy for the safety of lone workers out in wild conditions in outlying areas, he insisted.

Mr Macdonald stated, with a 70mph storm predicted, any reasonable employer would have called staff at risk like Lorna to stop them travelling to remote locations.

The solicitor alleged Lorna’s line manager Christine Lapsley tried to put the “entire blame for the decision to travel which led to her death entirely with Lorna.”

The family are “appalled” at the “shirking of responsibility” which totally ignores the duty of care that an employer has towards his employees,” said Mr Macdonald.

A new rule against concerned staff driving in winds over 40mph “amounts to an acceptance that Lorna shouldn’t have been allowed to travel” that day, he stated.

Health board chief executive Gordon Jamieson came under fire for allegedly failing to review the effectiveness of guidance to identify and manage risks to lone workers like Lorna.

The lawyer said the family feel Gordon Jamieson - who did not give evidence - was “honour bound” to speak to his organisation’s polices rather than leaving it to a lower ranking manager.

Mark Fitzpatrick, representing the health body, said Lorna was “probably” going too fast.

He said there were “no reasonable precautions whereby the death might have been avoided other than for the deceased to have driven with more care for the prevailing road and weather conditions.”

He insisted there were no flaws, defect, nor failure in the health board’s policies or practices and nothing the health board or its staff had done contributed to Lorna’s death.

He said, though an official Met Office warning of the storm was not circulated, alternative weather advice to the same effect was e-mailed all around.

Mr Fitzpatrick stressed Christine Lapsley wasn’t wrong not to individually phone the speech therapists to stay put - such calls for 70mph winds would have been “over-the-top.”

He said the family could have cited health board chief executive Gordon Jamieson to give evidence if they so wished.