A DISTRAUGHT mother believes a woman’s death could have been prevented if a mental health trust had learnt lessons from her own daughter’s suicide three years ago.

Marion Gaskell, 40, was found hanged in her home in Colchester in January 2013 after being discharged from the Lakes mental health unit four months earlier.

Her mother Martha Hulme said she should never have been allowed to leave the hospital after she attempted to kill herself while staying there as an inpatient suffering from bipolar and borderline personality disorder.

She also claims Marion was supposed to have regular appointments with a community psychiatric nurse after she was discharged but only one meeting was arranged.

At an inquest into Marion’s death, Essex coroner Caroline Beasley-Murray warned the North Essex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust future deaths could occur unless action was taken.

Ms Hulme said she was disgusted to read about the death of Dorota Kijowoska, 36, who killed herself at the Lakes, and said the health trust should have heeded the previous warning.

She said: “As soon as I read it I could not believe the similarities. I felt like somebody had stuck a knife in my stomach, I just cried and cried. It felt like my daughter’s life was not worth making the changes for.

“Marion was just a beautiful person, she would never hurt anyone and was caring and loving. She was telling them she wanted to commit suicide and nobody did anything about it.”

The Trust took full responsibility for Mrs Kijowska’s death and said changes would be made, but Mrs Hume said something should have been done when Marion died.

She said: “Why didn’t they make the changes then? Dorota’s life could have been saved.”

A spokesman for North Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust said: “We are sympathetic to Ms Hulme. There were a different set of circumstances in this case which cannot be compared to recent inquests. We would encourage the family of Ms Hulme to come and talk to us.”