A top-level meeting of Airedale NHS Trust on January 18 will discuss 20 recommendations of an independent review panel.

The panel has investigated a string of complaints by patient Susanne Kellner-Johnson.

The panel, called in because she was dissatisfied with the way her concerns were dealt with, says the trust should review its complaints procedures. The three-strong team heard how Mrs Kellner-Johnson was dragged naked from her Sutton home and forcibly detained at Airedale hospital last March. It concluded her detention had been carried out within the terms of the Mental Health Act.

But the panel is recommending, among other things:

the amendment of local Mental Health Act procedures

the setting up of a senior management group to enable exchange of information and training

the appointment of a trained local expert to administer the act.

The review panel says while continuing the good practice of dealing as quickly as possible with complaints at the lowest level the trust should respond within timescales set down locally and nationally.

Trust chief executive Mr Bob Allen says: "Because of the complexity and scale of this case I have to get together with a number of colleagues to look in detail on January 18. This is a difficult case but anyone is entitled to a fair review and we believe she is having that."

Austrian-born Mrs Kellner-Johnson, who is in her 30s and has a young daughter, hopes her battle will help other patients. As part of an on-going campaign for a change in the legal system governing mental health she intends to contact the Mental Health Act Commission which is currently reviewing the law.

But Mrs Kellner-Johnson remains dissatisfied with the trust's investigation and feels some of her complaints have not been dealt with.

She describes how she was taken to hospital by force without even her handbag after her bathroom door was broken down. She says she was strapped to a trolley.

She feels her human rights were violated and that she has been discriminated against because she is a woman and a foreigner. And she plans to take her case to the NHS Ombudsman and to the European Court of Human Rights if necessary.

"My complaint was about the conduct of the people involved in my detention and the information used against me," says Mrs Kellner-Johnson. "The trust has not responded to complaints about two doctors and a counsellor."

She insists: "I want them to admit they have messed up and I want wrong information erased from my records. It will be taken as fact for the rest of my life."

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