Gran with broken arm died after mix up with another patient by name of Patricia

A GRANDMOTHER died in hospital after being admitted with a broken arm when staff forgot that she hadn’t been seen by a consultant.

Retired carer Patricia Fowler, 75, was left languishing in bed for three days because of a mix-up over her name.

By the time the alarm was finally raised, sepsis and pneumonia had set in and the ‘fit and active’ grandmother of five died two days later.

Mrs Fowler broke her arm in a fall near her home in Fleetwood, Lancashire, on January this year and spent two days in Blackpool Victoria Hospital.

She was discharged but readmitted early on January 10 after falling ill. It was not until January 13 that she was seen by a consultant – and only after her condition deteriorated. She died two days later from sepsis and pneumonia, with her broken arm a contributing factor.

At an inquest into her death, Angela Russell, a secretary at the hospital, said Mrs Fowler was mistaken for another patient called Patricia on an email list of patients waiting to see a consultant.

This other patient had been seen so Mrs Fowler’s name was disregarded. In a statement to the coroner Mrs Russell said: ‘There had been a patient with the same fore- name, which appeared in exactly the same place on the list. When going through the emailed list, it was not obvious that the surname had changed. I did not notice this and neither did the consultants.’

Mrs Fowler’s son Scott, a 38-yearold signalman, said: ‘Going into hospital killed my mother.

‘You don’t die from a broken arm.

You die from pneumonia and sepsis and she got those because she was left on that ward without doctors’ reviews. If she had been seen, or a nurse had noticed she hadn’t been seen, she would still be here now.’

The hospital has admitted liability ahead of a clinical negligence claim and has written to Mrs Fowler’s family to apologise.