An inquest into the death of a woman at a Prestwich mental health ward found a "risk of future death" if online pharmacies are not integrated.

Ania Sohail died at North Manchester General Hospital in June 2021 after collapsing in the lounge area of the Griffin Ward, Junction 17, run by the Greater Manchester Mental Health Trust (GMMH).

An inquest into Ania’s death found that the 21-year-old had taken her own life after ingesting medication she bought from multiple online pharmacies and smuggled onto the ward.

The jury concluded that Ania’s death was contributed to by ineffectiveness of searches and assessments at the hospital as well as lack of integrated systems to allow pharmacies to share information about prescriptions.

READ MORE: Nosheen Akhtar: Inquest into Bury woman's death halted

Area Coroner for Manchester North, Catherine McKenna, has written to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care and the Chief Executive of GMMH to highlight concerns raised during the inquest, and to call for action to be taken.

She said: “While each individual pharmacy had in-house safety checks to safeguard against over prescribing by their own pharmacy, there is no integrated system in place which would alert a prescriber to prescriptions that have been dispensed by other on-line pharmacies.

“As a result, it is currently possible for a patient to obtain excessive quantities of medication by simply placing multiple orders with different online pharmacists.

“There is no requirement for the online pharmacies to share information with the patient’s GP.

“This means that, in the absence of the patient’s consent to share information, the online prescriber is reliant on the accuracy and truthfulness of the history provided by the patient.”

The inquest, which concluded on January 30, heard that Ania denied having a mental health disorder and declined consent for the prescriber to share information with her GP when ordering medication from multiple pharmacies.

If the prescribers had been aware of her condition, the coroner said, “it would have altered their prescribing decisions".

The coroner’s report also notes that searches undertaken by ward staff following two overdoses taken by Ania were "ineffective" and failed to uncover the medication she had been stockpiling.

Ania’s death is one of three high profile deaths at mental health unit run by GMMH, including 18-year-old Rowan Thompson, and 17-year-old Charlie Millers, whose inquest will take place in December.

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