A dad was found dead five days after he absconded from the Horton Hospital, an inquest heard. 

James Rugg, 51, had walked out of ‘F’ ward on the morning of May 7, 2020, around 36 hours after he was admitted - having suffered seizures at the Banbury Lodge rehabilitation centre where he was receiving treatment for alcohol addiction.  

Giving evidence to senior coroner for Oxfordshire Darren Salter on Tuesday afternoon, the nurses and doctor responsible for Mr Rugg’s care the night before he absconded described him as ‘delirious, agitated and confused’. He was said to have been wandering around the ward and at one stage refused a staff nurse’s request to give him medication or check his observations. 

Dr Timothy Davies, the senior house officer on call overnight from May 6 to May 7, said he had been reading notes relating to another patient when he was asked by one of the nurses to assess Mr Rugg. 

“He was quite calm and he did know at the time he was in hospital and he was in hospital, essentially, for an alcohol detox,” the doctor said. “He did not remember the seizures he’d had at Banbury Lodge.”  

An action plan written on Mr Rugg’s electronic patient record – or EPR – set out further medication that should be given and suggested nursing staff ‘modify environmental factors that could exacerbate his delirium’ and give him 1-1 supervision ‘if possible’.  

He said in a statement that he’d discussed the plan with the ward’s charge nurse and the nurse responsible for Mr Rugg’s care. 

However, neither the deputy charge nurse nor the staff nurse responsible for looking after Mr Rugg that night remembered speaking to Dr Davies about the plan. Had they been told there may have been conversations with hospital managers about redeploying extra staff to the ward to ensure a nurse could have been put on ‘bay watch’, the inquest was told. 

Under cross-examination from the family’s barrister, Karl Hirst, the doctor said: “I can’t account for the discrepancy.” 

Staff nurse Viola Bosinco told the inquest that although she did not see reference to the 1-1 nursing suggestion, a care support worker was put to watch over Mr Rugg’s bed. 

The inquest heard that Mr Rugg absconded from hospital the following day. His partner said she received a call from him at 9.45am on May 7 from the hospital. “He was very distressed and didn’t know where he was and wanted me to come and get him.”  

She was called by hospital staff at 10.30am asking if she had spoken to her partner after 9.45am as they ‘hadn’t seen him for 30 minutes and weren’t sure where he was’.  

His body was found by officers in a police helicopter at around 4.40pm on May 12, five days later, in a field near the Horton Hospital. His cause of death was later confirmed to be hypothermia and alcoholic ketoacidosis. 

In a statement, partner Stephanie Mitchell said Mr Rugg, who lived in Coventry, had checked into Banbury Lodge rehabilitation facility on May 5. He had begun to drink more after losing his job as a senior programme manager.  

He was described as a highly intelligent Cambridge graduate who spoke several languages, was ‘very fit’ and had climbed Mt Snowdon in North Wales in just two-and-a-half hours with his two boys in the year before his death.  

The inquest continues.