I’D HAVE GOT MORE HELP FROM GOOGLE

Amother whose baby son died after NHS helpline blunders has said she ‘could have got more information from Google’. melissa mead, 28, lost her one-year-old son William (pictured right) to blood poisoning after a 111 operator with no medical training instructed her to give him Calpol.

the adviser made one incorrect decision after another trying to follow the ‘pathway’ laid down by the 111 service’s computer. William could have survived if he had been admitted immediately to hospital with a lung abscess caused by a bacterial infection.

A doctor from 111 called her back later to say the ‘best place’ for William, of Penryn, Cornwall, was in bed. But within hours, the mother found William dead in his cot, having succumbed to sepsis.

mrs mead, a personal assistant, said she had tried for 11 years to have a baby with partner Paul, a 31-year-old Bt engineer.

She has been told her chances of ever having another child are ‘slim’, but now has a burgeoning career as a campaigner for an improved health service and greater awareness of sepsis.

the family are awaiting the outcome of an NHS review into William’s care, which is expected to a highlight range of failures. they have also met officials from the 111 helpline, who said they are looking into how the service can be improved.

mrs mead, in from the living room of her Cornwall home, still littered with her late son’s toys, said the helpline was a ‘farce’ and outlined a catalogue of errors made by the call handler before his death on December 14.

this led to William’s case being designated as ‘non-urgent’ and a call-back six hours later, rather than the ambulance dispatch that was required. ‘I was ringing for advice and guidance, it was a Saturday and we couldn’t just go to the doctor’s. they said fluid, Calpol and Nurofen.

‘the very first thing on the phone call, I explained that William was in “severe pain”. the call handler put he was not in pain. that is error – human error. they asked whether he had a temperature for over three days. But sepsis can kill you in 12 hours. three days is useless.

‘the outcome should have been that William had a clinician come over on to the phone call and he would have heard he was in respiratory distress. At that point, he would have called an ambulance – but they didn’t get a trained clinician.

‘there is a question within the [computer pathway] algorithm that asked has he been crying for longer than an hour. I said he can’t stay awake for more than 45 minutes, so the call handler put no. that’s another answer that was incorrect.’

mrs mead also said the call handler failed to appreciate the significance of a plunge in William’s temperature because of the system of questions.

‘there is no room for expansion. It is all black and white, yes and no. A clinician would have recognised the significant drop in temperature.

‘ In an ideal world, you would always speak to trained clinicians, but we can’t. therefore the system that we get has to be watertight.’

She said the helpline’s inability to recognise her son’s diagnosis was unacceptable. ‘Sepsis kills 37,000 people every year. that’s not rare.

‘Call handlers need to pay attention to detail. For them it’s a job, but that phone call was a pivotal point in our child’s care. I probably could have got more information from Google.’

reflecting on how the helpline could be improved, mrs mead said: ‘the questions need to allow for significant events like sepsis. the answers also need to allow for expansion.

‘Now we sit here and think – he died because he had a cough. We can’t come to terms with it.’

MRS mead said she was ‘exceptionally disappointed’ at the news that the helpline was still performing badly in her area. She said: ‘how many children are going to die before they realise they need to be proactive, not reactive.’

recounting the moment she found her son dead, mrs mead said: ‘I opened the curtains and his eyes just stared right through me. his little coat is still on the peg. his room has been left exactly as it was.’

melissa mead, who has suffered pos-traumatic stress disorder as a result of her bereavement, blogs about her experiences at www. amotherwithoutachild.com.

At William’s inquest, she said she believed the infection should have been picked up during visits to the three Spires medical Practice in truro, Cornwall.

he developed a chesty cough in late September last year but was prescribed antibiotics for tonsillitis. Soon after he was diagnosed with scarlet fever, but a month later the doctor heard ‘crackles’ in his chest and prescribed an inhaler.

But his health continued to decline, with mrs mead ringing 111 at around 4pm on December 13 for advice. the operator arranged for Serco, which ran the out-of-hours GP to service, to call her back. A doctor phoned that evening at 6.53pm to say that the symptoms were typical of a viral infection.

he offered an appointment at Falmouth health Centre but mrs mead decided not to wake her son and risk taking him into the cold. She found him dead the next morning.

Professor Peter Fleming, of Bristol Children’s hospital, said there was ‘a very good chance’ he could have been treated in hospital. he also expressed concern the 111 service had not acted on William’s temperature of 104f.

the South West Ambulance Services Foundation trust, which runs the 111 service in Cornwall, said it could not comment.