Quicker reporting of listeria case ‘may have saved victim’

THE listeria outbreak that is thought to have killed five people last year could have been identified sooner if hospital trusts were quicker to report cases, a coroner has said.

Brenda Elmer, 81, died after eating a chicken mayonnaise sandwich contaminated with listeria while she was in hospital, her inquest has concluded.

Penelope Schofield, the senior coroner, branded delays in reporting some cases as “inexcusable” and an information “black hole” also meant that warnings were delayed in reaching Mrs Elmer’s family.

Mrs Elmer is one of five thought to have died in last year’s national listeria scandal, linked to sandwiches supplied to 43 NHS trusts. It prompted a “root and branch” review of hospital food in the UK by Public Health England (PHE).

Mrs Elmer, who had been suffering from breast cancer, was admitted to St Richard’s Hospital in Chichester for an unrelated operation and discharged on May 3.

Nick Phin, deputy director for the national infection service at PHE, said an investigation traced the listeria outbreak to sandwiches from The Good Food Chain, which used meat from North Country Quality Foods.

Mrs Elmer’s son, Jonathan, told the inquest his mother had felt weak as she recovered from her operation, but they had no idea at the time that it could have been listeria. A blood test from her GP took several days to come back and the results were inconclusive.

However, she was taken to a hospital in Tunbridge Wells on June 2 after becoming uncommunicative. There she tested positive for listeria and died on July 17, the inquest in Crawley, West Sussex, heard yesterday.

Alec Elmer, her widower, said: “I think, had we known earlier, something would have been done.

“Had we been aware earlier, that blood test would have been an emergency blood test. As it was, it took three or four days to get the results through.”

The coroner said she was issuing two Prevention of Future Deaths reports – one to PHE about communication issues and the other on the issue of wider reporting of listeria cases. She said it was “inexcusable” that some cases of listeria had not been reported to PHE quickly enough – though not Western Sussex Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, whose response was swift.