Father who died of sepsis was not given antibiotics for five days
A FATHER of two died of sepsis at a troubled hospital after his treatment was delayed for five days, a report has revealed.
Simon Smith should have been given antibiotics soon after he was admitted with an excruciating pain in his leg in July last year.
But staff at Russells Hall Hospital in Dudley, West Midlands, failed on seven separate occasions to give him the drugs, according to a damning assessment of his care.
The Daily Mail has long campaigned for better diagnosis and treatment of sepsis, which claims 52,000 lives a year in Britain.
Mr Smith, 51, was displaying classic signs of the illness – a high temperature and raised heart rate – when he was admitted.
Staff at the hospital, where his wife Hayley works as a data collector, initially gave him painkillers and said he should be given antibiotics if his condition deteriorated, notes made on his first night in hospital indicate.
But he was not given the drugs until he went into multi- organ failure five days later, according to a 38-page internal review of his treatment seen by the Daily Mail.
He was then taken into intensive care and spent three months there before he was discharged in October. However, he had not fully recovered and a fortnight later he was taken back into hospital. He died on November 1. His widow, 47, said: ‘I have lost everything. He was my best friend and my husband for 25 years.
‘All they gave him for five days was painkillers – he was in the worst pain he had ever felt, his temperature was spiking.’
Mr Smith, an installer, was eventually diagnosed with osteomyelitis – an infection in the bone of his leg. This triggered sepsis – a violent immune response which attacked the organs of his body.
The report reveals a series of failures in Mr Smith’s care, including lack of communication, poor record keeping and a failure to act on his deteriorating condition. Between his admission on July 27 and the multi- organ failure on August 2 ‘there were seven missed opportunities to commence antibiotics’, it found.
Sepsis has been a priority for the NHS for three years, following the Mail’s campaign, with doctors required to immediately check all suspected cases and rapidly give patients antibiotics.
However, there has been repeated criticism of Dudley Group NHS Trust over how it dealt with the issue. Last year Care Quality Commission inspectors raised concerns that senior consultants resented the NHS focus on sepsis. Health Minister Caroline Dinenage has criticised the hospital doctors’ ‘frankly unacceptable’ attitude.
The hospital then commissioned an investigation of 229 deaths.
Diane Wake of Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust said: ‘I would like to offer my heartfelt condolences to Simon Smith’s family.’ She said a review of Mr Smith’s care ‘highlighted significant areas of learning’.
She added that sepsis care had improved at Russells Hall, with the number of deaths from the condition falling in the four years to December 2018.