Woman never saw her twins after NHS failed to treat sepsis

AN NHS hospital has admitted failings in the care of a young mother who died suffering from sepsis just 48 hours after giving birth to twins.

Sophie Burgess, 19, delivered her children Evie and Oliver, but never saw them, after being forced to wait five hours after diagnosis to be transferred to intensive care.

The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust said lessons had been learned “to identify and manage sepsis as early as possible”.

Despite being diagnosed with sepsis at 9.50pm, Miss Burgess was not transferred until 2.30am, the law firm said. Although the babies were eight weeks premature, the births went smoothly.

Kay Kelly, clinical negligence lawyer from Lanyon Bowdler, said Miss Burgess, who died in March 2015, had been desperate to see the twins in neonatal care, but developed a fever.

She was given antibiotics and midwives made repeated attempts to call for senior clinicians to attend, but “nobody took important decisions and recognised how ill she was”, Ms Kelly said.

The care worker was suffering from HELLP Syndrome, a life-threatening pregnancy condition, as well as sepsis.

Ms Kelly said: “It is another terrible sepsis case. The family are obviously very angry and upset. It’s been very hard looking after the children.”

Jonathan Odum, the trust’s medical director, offered “condolences and regret” to the family.

He added: “The lessons identified from our investigation have been shared within the trust and continue to help us to identify and manage sepsis as early as possible.”