HEALTH bosses have called for a series of improvements after a mentally-ill teenager was found hanged in the Royal Hampshire County Hospital in Winchester.

Damion Price, 19, was found in toilets at the hospital last October.

Despite being initially assessed as a high suicide risk, he was discharged and shortly afterwards was discovered with tubing around his neck.

Hampshire and Isle of Wight Strategic Health Authority conducted a review and has made a series of recommendations to try to ensure there is no repeat.

The review panel, chaired by Professor Martin Severs, non-executive director of the SHA, said it was concerned that the shortfalls identified at the RHCH, pictured above right, would apply across Hampshire.

It called for a county-wide audit of the way mentally-ill patients are cared for in hospitals.

The death of Mr Price, of Vespasian Way, Andover, is among three at the RHCH site in the last 18 months. Two patients at the Melbury Lodge mental health unit have also been found hanged. The most recent was Rachel Knowles, 21, from Chandler's Ford, last month.

A spokesman for the RHCH has declined to comment until after the inquest into Mr Price's death next Wednesday.

She said she was surprised the authority had considered the report in public before

the inquest. Among the changes called for were:

Constant watching of patients at risk of self-harm

Better training of both junior and senior medical staff to end the confusion about the Mental Health Act

Better communications among medical staff and better record keeping

Better assessment of patients following deliberate self-harm and those who abscond from the hospital.

The SHA board yesterday approved the recommendations contained in the draft report. It agreed that a progress report should be made to the board in July.