Coroner’s concerns over death

A coroner has raised concerns with a hospital trust after a man died following a five-hour hospital wait.

Matthew Crowley was rushed by ambulance to A&E with a lump in his groin the size of a grapefruit on June 9 last year.

The unemployed heroin user was pale, jaundiced, septic and heading into multiple organ failure.

An inquest heard that, due to pressures on staff and limited communication, decisive action to treat his condition was not taken as soon as it could have.

It resulted in what senior coroner Patricia Harding called “lamentable and unnecessary delays” in his care.

Mr Crowley died at the Tunbridge Wells Hospital the next day after attempts to revive him failed.

She recorded a narrative verdict and made a ‘regulation 28’ report to the trust’s chief executive, Glenn Douglas, with a catalogue of issues to be addressed.

These include a protocol limiting the wait for patients being discontinued because of emergency care pressures and more than a two-hour delay for Mr Crowley to be assessed by a senior doctor.

The intensive care unit at Tunbridge Wells Hospital at Pembury was not informed of the transfer.

She said: “Significant though these delays were, it cannot be said on the balance of probabilities that, had they not occurred, Mr Crowley would not have died.”

Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells Hospital Trust said an internal investigation had identified similar issues and action was being taken.