Phoebe Abruzzese

Making grieving and struggling families comfortable to tell their stories, relentless in pursuit of the truth and comfortable in digging into complex situations is why Phoebe has established herself already as a fantastic young journalist with enormous potential. This has been highlighted most with her work on the crisis at an under fire mental health NHS Trust, which has seen a catalogue of failings and a number of preventable deaths. In March, Phoebe covered the story of the death of a man After I covered the death of a man called Matthew Gale at Northallerton Train Station, which was later found to be a suicide.

His family contacted Phoebe and told her, at the time of his death, he was being treated as an inpatient at West Park Hospital, a site run by the Tees Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Trust. They claimed that care had been lacking, with Matthew barely seeing doctors during his stay, administrators not having the correct address for Matthew on file, and that no one listened to family concerns or complaints about the hospital. The publication and reaction to this story was the start of a snowballing effect, with dozens of families contacting Phoebe to share their stories. During this time, Phoebe has fought against difficult press officers to be able to report the truth and get these stories into the public domain, producing some extremely impressive work for a trainee reporter. The stories resulted in strong public and political condemnation of the trust, with repeated calls for a public inquiry. Despite promises by the Trust to improve and make changes, Phoebe’s persistence has allowed to find with the help of FOI that almost two dozen patients of the trust’s crisis team have died since this vow was made – further strengthening calls for change.

Phoebe’s work on this important and complex issue has made it a huge regional talking point. The content she has produced would be exceptional for a senior reporter, let alone a trainee. It is for these reasons why she deserves to be considered for this award.