Girl, 2, died after NHS hotline said she just had tummy bug
A CORONER has called for urgent changes to the NHS 111 service after a seriously ill toddler died hours after being misdiagnosed with a tummy bug.
Natalie Deviren called the hotline three times in the middle of the night as her two-year-old Myla vomited, struggled to breathe and developed blue lips.
She says she was made to feel like a ‘paranoid’ mother and assured her daughter probably had gastroenteritis. In fact, Myla had a twisted bowel and suffered a cardiac arrest two hours later. She was then taken to hospital but doctors were unable to save her.
Assistant coroner Rosamund Rhodes-Kemp recorded that Myla died of natural causes, contributed to by neglect, and stressed the child would probably have survived with appropriate treatment.
Yesterday it emerged she had issued a ‘prevention of future deaths’ notice to NHS 111 along with Herts Urgent Care, which provided the out- ofhours service, and Public Health England, urging them to make improvements.
The toddler’s death is the latest linked to blunders at the NHS 111 telephone service.
One-year- old William Mead died in December 2014 after his mother dialled 111 but was not asked questions about sepsis symptoms, so call handlers failed to diagnose it.
The toddler, from Cornwall, had also been seen by six GPs in the months prior, but they too failed to detect a chest infection
From the Mail, Jan 26, 2016 which triggered sepsis. According to recent research, coroners have sent similar warnings to the advice line relating to 11 deaths over the past four years. They warned that diagnosis software, known as NHS Pathways, is failing to recognise when patients are critically ill.
Miss Rhodes-Kemp said that, while changes had been made since Myla’s death in August 2015, she was concerned that
NHS HOTLINE NOT SAFE FOR SICK CHILDREN ‘Made to feel like a paranoid parent’
more needed to be done. She said: ‘Evidence given at the inquest was that about 20 per cent of calls to both services [NHS 111 and out- of-hours] relate to sick children. There should therefore be robust systems in place to prevent sick children going without potentially life-saving treatment.’
She said steps should be taken for ‘a suitably-qualified paediatric specialist clinician’ to be available to talk to concerned parents at all times and the ‘default position’ should be ‘if in doubt, call an ambulance’.
Mrs Deviren, who lives with husband Matthew, a 33-year-old customer services worker, in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, said the family had been left ‘ absolutely devastated’ by Myla’s death.
She added: ‘ We trusted the advice from the 111 and out-of-hours service. It’s awful being made to feel like you are just being a paranoid parent.’
Myla began vomiting and suffering abdominal pain in the early hours of August 27, 2015.
Her mother checked the NHS’s online symptom-finder and rang 111. During her first call, at 4.06am, she mentioned her daughter’s blue lips. She called again 15 minutes later and held the phone to her daughter so the nurse could hear her breathing. At this point, the inquest heard, the nurse should have called for an ambulance. Instead, she put Mrs Deviren in touch with another nurse from the service, who misdiagnosed gastroenteritis.
Herts Urgent Care said it had ‘made a number of changes to its service since Myla’s death’, insisting staff had undergone mandatory training in relation to child illnesses – and there were more clinical advisers with paediatric experience.
NHS Digital said: ‘NHS Pathways safely triages 16.5million calls every year.’