‘Stop deaths of vulnerable with a Robin’s Law’
Autistic woman died ‘after failure to provide basic medical attention’
A GRIEVING sister has launched a campaign for “Robin’s Law” to protect the vulnerable after a coroner blamed doctors and a hospital over the death of a handicapped woman.
Robin Kitt Callender was 53 and a care home resident when she died without her family being informed of her illness. She had learning difficulties, severe autism, limited verbal communication and was partially sighted.
Coroner Nadia Persaud concluded the death was due to natural causes but highlighted contributing fac tors of neglect by her GP and King George Hospital, Ilford. The Eastern District coroner said there had been “a gross failure to provide basic medical attention” in the days before her death in May 2012. A post-mortem examination found Ms Callender died from a cardiac arrest and septicaemic shock as a result of haemorrhaging from inflammatory bowel disease. Her anxious state had made it “very difficult for her to communicate and doctors were therefore unable to assess her capacity”, Ms Persaud said. Staff at Perrymans Care Home in Barkingside, where Ms Callender was being cared for, took her on three occasions to see GPs at the Palms Medical Centre in Newbury Park. She was also admitted to the hospital’s A&E department, but was discharged without an assessment.
In regular visits between February and May 2012, her condition was not diagnosed and the required tests, including blood pressure, temperature, pulse and an abdominal examination were not carried out.
Professor Marc Winslet, an independent surgical expert and clinical lead for colorectal surgery at the Royal Free Hospital, told the inquest that Ms Call e n d e r ’s d e a t h wou l d h av e b e e n avoided if she had not been discharged from hospital in March and if her GP had taken a blood test in May.
Ms Callender was reluctant to have tests without her sister Karen Callender Caplan present. But the retired City sterling dealer, 68, says she was not told of her sister’s ill health until the day before her death. She is now planning to launch Casualties of Care, a campaign to highlight how the vulnerable are failed by care agencies which she hopes will lead to a change in the law. “It is too late for my younger sister but it is not too late for the thousands of vulnerable and unprotected Robins still out there,” she said. “I want to create a ‘Robin’s Law’ which would make it a criminal offence not to inform a family if someone in their care, who lacks capacity, falls ill and subsequently dies.”
Her solicitor Nina Ali of Hodge, Jones and Allen, said: “While I agree that there needs to be consequences when there are failings in care, that is not enough. It is just as important to prevent the failings in the first place and to raise standards.”
Matthew Hopkins, chief executive of the Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust, said: “A huge amount of work has been done to improve the care we provide to patients with learning disabilities since Miss Callender’s tragic death. We have also strengthened links with community learning disability teams to provide seamless, joined-up care.”
A spokesman for the Medical Defence Union said that Dr Joyce Akpotor, Ms Callender’s GP, was unable to comment due to patient confidentiality.