By Nadia Ntiamoah
A 14-year-old girl with a severe eating disorder died after being left unsupervised in a UK psychiatric hospital by an agency worker later found to be using false identity documents — and who fled to Ghana after the incident.
The tragedy has reignited concerns about staffing shortages, vetting failures, and systemic neglect in the UK’s mental health care facilities.
Ruth Szymankiewicz, a patient at Huntercombe Hospital in Taplow, Berkshire, was under a strict “one-to-one” observation plan following a recent self-harm incident. This required her to be in constant sight of staff on the Thames psychiatric intensive care ward.
But on February 12, 2022, the man assigned to monitor her — under the name “Ebo Acheampong” — abandoned his post during his very first shift at the hospital.
According to testimony at Buckinghamshire Coroner’s Court, senior staffer Michelle Hancey, with 18 years’ experience, discovered the lapse after Acheampong told her he “couldn’t follow” his patient.
When Hancey realised the patient was Ruth, she immediately told him to find her, but it was too late — Ruth had locked herself in her room and self-harmed.
She was rushed to John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, where she died two days later.
Acheampong had no prior experience in a psychiatric hospital setting and had been drafted in that morning because of a severe staffing shortage on the ward.
Nurses had been unable to take breaks, and Hancey admitted to feeling “upset and emotional” over dangerously low staffing levels, warning repeatedly that it posed a risk to patient safety.
The court heard that on the day of the incident, Hancey filed a formal “Datix” risk management report, warning that staff shortages could lead to patients on special observation being left unattended.
She testified that many staff were off sick due to exhaustion.
Family lawyer Tim Moloney KC told the inquest Ruth’s self-harm was not “out of the blue” — ward staff were well aware she would act if left unsupervised. “This was a known, foreseeable risk,” he said.
In the aftermath, it emerged Acheampong was using falsified identity documents and had been hired via the Platinum agency, which supplies care staff.
Police launched an investigation, but he never returned to the hospital and fled the UK for Ghana.
At the time of Ruth’s death, Huntercombe Hospital was operated by Active Care Group, which has since shut the facility entirely.
The closure has not quelled public anger, with patient safety campaigners demanding stricter vetting procedures for care workers and urgent reforms to prevent similar tragedies.
The inquest into Ruth’s death continues, probing whether a combination of identity fraud, lack of training, and chronic NHS staffing pressures created the fatal conditions that led to the loss of a vulnerable teenager.
