Hospital in £25k payout over death of toddler
‘Neglect’ led to death of Kayden
ADEVASTATED mum has received £25,000 compensation from the NHS after a string of hospital blunders led to the death of her poorly toddler.
Kayden Urmston-Bancroft died while waiting for surgery at Manchester Children’s Hospital (RMCH) in April 2016.
The ‘bubbly, loving little boy’ was 20 months old.
He was taken into hospital for an operation after it was discovered he had a hernia.
But there was an ‘unacceptable delay’ in getting him to theatre.
Three days later, distressed and in pain, Kayden deteriorated before going into cardiac arrest.
Medics revived the toddler, of Hillgate, Stockport, and performed emergency surgery but it was too late.
Kayden never regained consciousness and died in intensive care five days after being admitted to RMCH.
Following an inquest in September, coroner Angharad Davies found Kayden died of natural causes, contributed to by neglect.
She said the ‘unacceptable delay’ in Kayden’s surgery was ‘sufficiently serious to amount to a gross failure’.
Speaking after the inquest, Kayden’s grandmother Julie Rowlands – who lived with the toddler and his mum Shannon Bancroft, who was just 19 at the time of his death – told of her family’s heartbreak.
She said: “We expected to take him to the hospital for him to have the operation, and him to be running around three days later.
“We never, ever would have expected what happened to happen. It has had a huge effect on our family and a massive effect on Shannon.
“She was only 19 when she lost Kayden. For a 19-year-old girl to go through having your baby put on your lap and the life-support machine turned off is more than enough for anyone.
“Hopefully, now the inquest is over, she can properly grieve for him.”
Stephen Clarkson, a clinical negligence specialist from law firm Slater and Gordon, who represented the family, said: “No amount of money or apology will ever make up for the loss of their little boy, but the family hope that the hospital will learn from its mistakes, and that the changes the Trust has put in place as a result of Kayden’s death will prevent any other children losing their lives in such terrible circumstances.”
A spokesman for Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, which runs Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital, said: “We once again offer our sincere condolences to Kayden’s family and profound apologies for the lapse in standards which led to his death.
“The trust accepts the findings and conclusions of the coroner.
“As soon as Kayden died, we launched a rigorous and wide-ranging investigation to establish what had happened and put in place measures to ensure this does not happen again.
“The coroner highlighted the trust investigation was thorough, open and candid, and we are grateful to the coroner for recognising the work undertaken by the trust.
“The hospital leadership has also put in place new processes to work with staff to identify on an ongoing basis where there is opportunity to improve and to work with staff to make those changes.
“We wish to reassure the public that patient safety is our top priority.
“As a principle we never comment upon whether or not claims or settlements have been made, as we would not wish to breach a matter of privacy.”