POISON KID ‘LEFT TO DIE’

Shocking toll of NHS blunders

A CHILD who drank a toxic paint solvent died after being sent home from hospital.

The youngster was admitted to a ward suffering suspected turpentine poisoning.

But the child was discharged and suffered a fatal heart attack the following day.

The tragedy was one of almost 200 deaths caused by NHS blunders last year.

They included a pensioner who died from a nosebleed after his family’s 111 calls were not acted on. Another patient died after having a feeding tube inserted into their lung rather than their stomach.

And a sick elderly man died the day after a receptionist turned him away from his GP surgery because it was too busy. The incidents were revealed by hospital watchdog NHS Improvement after a Freedom Of Information request.

It listed 175 “death incidents” in hospitals in England and Wales last year. These are deaths in which “patient safety incidents” are reported so lessons can be learned from any errors that were made.

Other cases included a patient who died because the machine to restart his heart was not charged.

In another incident a patient was transferred to a ward after they had already died.

The names of the patients and details about where the deaths occurred were not revealed.

Katherine Murphy, from The Patients Association, said: “The FOI has revealed some truly tragic and avoidable deaths. It is so sad to hear that patients, who may otherwise still be alive, died as a result of symptoms being misdiagnosed, overlooked or ignored.

“Whilst no one, including doctors and nurses, can get things right all of the time, very few people would deny the obvious outcomes of overstretched and tired staff resulting in more mistakes and errors of judgement.”

She added: “I cannot imagine the grief the families must be going through, and it is simply impossible to quantify the huge loss each time someone passes away because of the oversights presented in this FOI.

“That is why The Patients Association is constantly campaigning for better ways of doing things that promote the highest levels of patient care and safety.

“Only by learning from mistakes can improvements be made and the same errors avoided in the future.”