A death in Wiltshire

In the council report he's known as 'Adult D'. Let's call him John, because he was a man, and men have names.

In the winter of 2017 John went to hospital suffering alcohol withdrawal symptoms. Because no support was available he was discharged. He was told to avoid the withdrawal symptoms by continuing his drinking.

In Wiltshire, drunk, he was thrown off a train. In the night he crept into the communal area of a block of flats, and the police and paramedics were called. But he was just a drunk, so the paramedics went away again and the police dumped him in a public convenience.

John died there before the morning, of drink and the cold. He was forty.

The report says it was nobody's fault, because people like John are difficult to deal with, and he might still have died even if he hadn't been left in a public bog.

Or in council language: "Resource limitations may make the creation of a specialist resource to support adults in this situation untenable, therefore the system needs to mitigate risk by agreeing a multi-agency protocol and using existing powers and resources to ensure that adults at risk are protected, to ensure we prevent the same thing happening again. A multi-agency protocol should be established to support professionals who are called to attend adults at risk who are highly intoxicated and who pose a risk to themselves and, potentially, to others. This will support professionals to make the right decisions to protect adults from risk."

The full report is in the agenda for Wiltshire's Health and Wellbeing board, item 12.

This is austerity.