A pensioner who struggled to cope after having his psychiatric medication stopped took his own life the day after being seen by NHS crisis workers, an inquest has heard.

Michael Elliott died in his Great Yarmouth home on September 12 last year, with his body found by a social worker during a welfare check. He was 78.

An inquest into his death held on Friday concluded he had taken his own life by overdosing on medication - a day after a senior mental health practitioner judged him as not in need of hospital treatment.

The court heard Mr Elliott, of Beatty Road, was bipolar and had a long history of mental ill-health - which for several years he managed with lithium.

However, this medication was first reduced and then stopped after he began to develop kidney failure - a condition which can be a known side effect of using lithium.

In the latter years of his life, several alternative medications were prescribed to Mr Elliott instead of lithium, however, he regularly complained of these not giving the same benefits to his mental health.

On September 11, Mr Elliott was referred to the crisis team of the Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust after self-harming and was visited by senior mental health practitioner Frederick Blackett - who made him a follow-up appointment the next day.

He said he did not feel Mr Elliott required hospital admission at that point - but that colleagues assessing him the following day should use a "low threshold".

Mr Blackett told the court: "I genuinely believed the gentleman was willing to engage with a plan we had made."

Samantha Goward, area coroner for Norfolk, concluded his death to have been suicide.

She said: "There has to be a delicate balance between risk and benefits with medication, but it seems there wasn't any alternative quite as effective as lithium for Mr Elliott."

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