Hakeem Hussain: ‘Education, health & crime professionals failed Birmingham school boy’

The independent chair of Birmingham Safeguarding Children Partnership has told how the review into the death of seven year-old Hakeem Hussain has found that education and health professionals let him down.

Hakeem’s mother, Laura Heath, was sentenced to 20 years in jail in April for the death of her son who died almost five years ago.

Coventry Crown Court found that “Incapable” Laura Heath deliberately “prioritised her addiction to heroin and crack cocaine” instead of caring for Hakeem who died from an asthma attack. The night of Hakeem Hussain’s death in 2017, after smoking heroin in the other room, she failed to stir as he gasped for breath.

His freezing body was found outside the flat on Cook Street in Nechells shortly after 07:30 GMT on the morning of 26 November. It is possible Hakeem had already been dead for as long as seven hours.

Penny Thompson, CBE, said: “Through the Serious Case Review we have  learnt that all those organisations and individuals who came into professional contact with Hakeem  could and should have done better. Once again, we have a tragedy of a child dying from asthma. This  is not inevitable or acceptable.

“With the benefit of hindsight, the extent of Hakeem’s neglect was there to be seen well before the  decision to place him on a Child Protection Plan two days before his death.

“It is horrendous that Hakeem’s unhappiness and fear of repeated asthma attacks, some of which required hospital  admissions, and the marked reduction in his attendance and performance at school, did not trigger more effective intervention.”

In what way did each or the education, health and crime agencies who came into contact with Hakeem fail him?

In her statement BSCP Independent Chair Ms Thompson identified areas of failure for each of the education, health and organisations.

She said: “In particular, the school were ineffective in escalating concern; there was a lack of join-up across  Health Service organisations and ineffective discharge planning for his asthma; the Drugs Agency  didn’t sufficiently focus on the impact on Hakeem of his mother’s drug addiction; the GP failed to recognise a need to share important information without consent because of the risk of significant  harm; and the Social Worker was trying to work positively with Hakeem’s mother and prioritised an older teenage daughter and her baby, to the detriment of Hakeem; the Police missed opportunities  to properly consider the safety of children when responding to incident within the home.

What has Hakeem’s mum said about his death - and what about his father?

Hakeem, a loving child who was talented in music and arts, lived alone with Heath after his father was jailed in 2016. Laura Heath had three other children, but Hakeem’s half-siblings had all been removed from her care. He was a normal and healthy child until 2013, when he developed asthma symptoms for which he had to be hospitalised three times.

Following the conclusion of the criminal proceedings Hakeem’s mother, Laura Heath, contributed to the review and reflected, “Hakeem should never have been left with me”. However, Ms Thompson stressed that was not her stance when agencies were supporting the family before Hakeem died.

She said: “The authoritative partnership practice  required to enable Hakeem’s needs to be properly seen and his voice heard, was sadly lacking. The  assessment that should have identified the positive role his father had played before going to prison,  did not take place.

Sadly Hakeem is not the only child who has died from parental neglect. Is there anything that we can learn from these cases to stop them happening?

Ms Thompson pointed out that many themes identified in this review reinforce national learning from case reviews:

• the need to hear the voice of the child and understand their lived experience 24/7;

• the need to give due attention to heritage, identity and extended family;

• the need to respond to changes and performance in school;

• the imperative to share information where protection is in doubt and not to rely on parental  consent;

• the value of professionals coming together to gain a full picture of relevant factors.

In this case, she said, the key factors were mother’s drug dependency linked with serious economic hardship, poor housing and personal consequences; the loss of positive paternal involvement; competing  concerns for other vulnerable family members.

She added that there is one other factor that finally proved fatal,  and that was ASTHMA. Ms Thompson said: “This is a life threatening, chronic condition, and when accompanied by the  other factors listed above, it proved deadly.”

Has anything been done to protect other vulnerable children who may be suffering from asthma in Birmingham?

Ms Thompson explained that in the intervening five years since Hakeem’s death in 2017, a lot has changed. All agencies acted  quickly to improve their own practice and embed emerging learning from the review, whilst  finalisation of the review and publication was delayed until the outcome of the criminal proceedings.

There has also been significant developments and improvement in services for children and families  in Birmingham, with the Police, NHS and Local Authority now having equal statutory leadership  responsibility for the multi-agency safeguarding arrangement through the Birmingham Safeguarding  Children Partnership.

There has been a major restructuring of how health services are commissioned and provided through the new Birmingham Integrated Care Board, the merger of the  probation services and the formation of Birmingham Children’s Trust in 2018. Health discharge  planning has been overhauled.

Individual Asthma Management plans should be in place for all  relevant children and reviewed annually by an experienced clinician.

Child Protection Conferences  are scheduled to enable urgent immediate action, if necessary. Change Grow Live (CGL) drug  treatment services are more mindful of the needs of children. This summer the city’s refreshed  Childhood Neglect Strategy will be launched at the Safeguarding Practitioner’s Conference in  September 2022.

Ms Thompson added: “We cannot guarantee that no child will suffer neglect nor die from asthma; we can assure everyone that learning from Hakeem’s death has contributed to positive and lasting improvements in  partnership working for the protection of children. It is our ambition that Birmingham should be a  child friendly city where all children flourish.”

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