Gill Farrington speaks to the chief executive of the NHS trust which is under review after the mercy killing of Sarah Lawson by her father.

An independent review has been ordered into the care provided to Sarah by Worthing Priority Care NHS Trust.

Richard Congdon, chief executive of the trust, is keen to discuss the tragic death of Sarah Lawson but lawyers won't let him. He has been instructed simply to stick to the facts in medical notes.

The review panel will investigate claims by Sarah's mother Karen that the trust failed her daughter. Mrs Lawson fully supports her husband, saying he committed an act of desperation as Sarah's attempts to take her own life became a regular occurrence.

Mrs Lawson said: "She was regularly taking overdoses but it was just a case of her having her stomach pumped and then being sent home.

"Nothing was ever done to try to stop it happening in the first place."

Despite being instructed to say little about Sarah's case, Mr Congdon has handed over a list of services he claims the trust offered her from September 1997 to April 21, 2000, hours before she died.

The list details a range of treatments, including stays in Homefield Hospital, medication, group therapy and one-to-one support from a community nurse and occupational therapist.

It also states the trust paid for Sarah to have a private hospital bed when their own were full and referred her to regional and national centres of excellence for specialist treatment.

He said Sarah turned down stays in both centres and added: "We are a local trust and there are some needs that are beyond our capacity. Referrals are then made to centres outside our area if we believe people would benefit from such specialist knowledge.

"The treatments we offered represent a large proportion of our services."

Mr Congdon said Sarah was first referred to Worthing Priority Care in September 1997 and mental health workers were in contact with her until October 1999. He claimed the trust then lost contact with her until April 2000, the month she died.

According to their records, when she turned up at the accident and emergency department in Worthing on April 16, the trust had had no contact with her for six months.

Mr Congdon said: "We believed she had left the area so a consultant wrote to Sarah's GP with a suggested treatment plan in case she contacted a GP again in crisis."

The crisis occurred six days before her death when Mrs Lawson was called back from staying with a friend in London by her husband.

She said on returning home her daughter, who had seemed to be getting better, had cut her arms badly and was in "a terrible state". She was eventually admitted to Homefield Hospital on April 20, but discharged a day later for allegedly passing cannabis to another patient who was detained under the Mental Health Act.

Mrs Lawson has disputed this and the decision to discharge Sarah will be examined in the review. The trust's alleged failure to involve the family in Sarah's case and the decision not to section her will also be investigated.

Mr Congdon cannot reveal Sarah's diagnosis but said it was "complex" and not manic depression as reported in some national newspapers.

He said: "This case is not about the trust not having enough money or resources, it is about long-term treatment. It is down to the review to decide on whether our actions were sufficient."

Mrs Lawson has vowed to sue the trust for failing Sarah and hopes her daughter's death will lead to a change in mental health care and improved services.

She said: "Lessons have to be learned from what happened with Sarah. Thousands of people must be going through a similar ordeal."

Mr Congdon admits the trust does not provide a comprehensive service but said it was working to develop community care in an area where there was once none .

He said: "We need to restore public confidence in our services and continue to expand them. If there are serious lessons to be learned from this review we will make changes."