A former NHS mental health nurse, Stuart Ayris, has told the Lampard Inquiry that a doctor at a scandal-hit Essex mental health hospital once said "the ideal patient is one medicated to just above a coma." The inquiry is examining more than 2,000 deaths of patients admitted to inpatient mental health units in Essex between 2000 and 2023, and Mr Ayris's testimony — as the first former staff member to give evidence — offers a stark insider account of the culture of over-medication and neglect alleged to have contributed to the deaths.

Mr Ayris, who was a registered mental health nurse for 27 years and worked as a ward manager at the Linden Centre in Chelmsford between 2003 and 2009, described "astonishing" apathy among staff, some of whom he said shut themselves in offices to avoid helping patients. He raised concerns in a serious incident report following an inpatient's death in 2008 but was disciplined and moved to a different role. The comment about medicating patients "to just above a coma" was later dismissed as not being meant literally. Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust (EPUT), the focus of the inquiry, has apologised and says staffing and care have been "transformed".