WILTSHIRE Council has increased staffing levels in its Court of Protection team after it was discovered that a schizophrenic man died with just pounds left after his banked accounts were frozen.

A review into the death of the man, know as Man C, was carried out by the adult safeguarding board – led by Richard Crompton – who investigate deaths where public agencies might have failed to provide appropriate care.

The paranoid schizophrenic had been in and out of hospital and was under the care of mental health teams within the NHS and Wiltshire Council. He was described as being difficult to engage with and did not accept his diagnosis and medication. The Court of Protection Team were responsible for his bank accounts. He lived very frugally and it was discovered that two years before he died, his accounts and funds were paused.

However the funds were never reactivated and when he was taken to hospital for the final time in September 2017 he was “emaciated and starved” and died eight days later.

Since his death, three new staff members have been employed and the Court of Protection team manager has had her case load reduced in a bid to prevent the same happening to another person.

Wiltshire Council corporate director Carlton Brand said: “We have redesigned the process of how we as a team check and audit. We have increased resources in the area to take on more staff and we have taken case load off the manager so she can perform and undertake supervision to a higher quality.”

In another case, where an alcoholic died after being left in public toilets by police and ambulance staff overnight, Mr Compton said lessons had been learned.

He said: “There was a protocol but on that night it was not followed. We are now in the process of creating a new protocol for this type of event, which isn’t uncommon for frontline staff to follow.

“I can with confidence say will not happen again due to changes made at corporate team.

“These cases are the rarity. Thousands of similar decisions are made everyday by frontline staff which are dealt with appropriately and very occasionally things are not done correctly.”