Serious Hospital Failings Found Following Inquest Into The Death Of A Baby

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The BBC has reported this week following findings by a Coroner that neglect and failure to provide adequate medical care contributed to the preventable death of a baby.

First inquest

In August 2016, baby Hayden Nguyen, sadly passed away aged six days at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London.

Following his death, an internal investigation followed which found there had been eight errors in the care he’d received, including failures to identify signs of septic shock and to act on abnormal test results.

An Inquest into Hayden’s death then followed, held in 2017.

The Coroner at that Inquest concluded Hayden had died of natural causes.

The hospital then produced a second report but halved the number of errors found and concluded the root cause of Hayden’s death was an infection which is known to have a high mortality”.

Hayden’s parents were incensed by the findings of the Coroner at the original Inquest and decided to fight for a second Inquest.

To do so was no small task, with Hayden’s parents having to apply to the Attorney General’s Office for permission to go to the High Court to ask judges to overturn the Coroner’s original conclusion.

It was agreed in December 2021 by two High Court judges that a new inquest should take place “in the interests of justice”. The judges considered that the original Coroner had been “unwise” and “close to being intemperate” with her questioning of one witness “close to the borderline between robustness and unacceptability.”

Obvious needs were simply not met

At the second Inquest, Senior Coroner, Richard Travers, said in his findings that Hayden had “obvious needs that were simply not met” by clinicians after his parents had taken him to the hospital due to concerns about a fever.

Sadly, Hayden’s condition quickly deteriorated, and he had a cardiac arrest and died within 12 hours of arriving at the hospital.

At the second Inquest, the Coroner found that the treatment Hayden received fell “very seriously below expected standard” and that, had he received appropriate and timely care, he would have survived.

Chief Executive for Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Lesley Watts, said:

“We are deeply sorry for the loss of baby Hayden and offer our condolences to his family during this time. We remain committed to learning from any findings to improve our practices and ensure the highest standards of care for every patient.”

Vital honest appraisal

Speaking about the difficulties of the original Inquest findings and the need to fight for a second Inquest, Hayden’s family said they hope that the legal steps they took will allow other families to argue that Coroners need to put the bereaved family at the heart of every Inquest.

The whole process cost Hayden’s parents about £250,000, including the High Court challenge and legal fees.

Hayden’s father said:

“The cost doesn’t compare to the injustice…So everything we did was completely right. I think it was incumbent on us to do it because I do know there are other families out there who can’t necessarily afford to do what we did.”

Comment

This case highlights how difficult it can be for families to seek justice as Hayden’s parents fought for seven years to reach this conclusion after going through two separate Inquests.

Ongoing or protracted processes such as this make it incredibly hard for families to grieve properly and demonstrate the importance of a proper and thorough investigation from the outset.

It is true that more needs to be done to ensure the coronial process is working as well as it should and that bereaved families are put first.

Furthermore, the Coroner’s finding that the care and treatment provided by the hospital in a life-threating situation fell seriously below the standards expected is very concerning and it is clearly vital that the hospital are true to its word and learn lessons from the findings of the Inquest.

How can we help?Baby Inquest Hospital Failures

Marcus Williams is a Paralegal in our Medical Negligence team, which is ranked in Tier One by the independently researched publication, The Legal 500.

For advice on the subjects discussed in this article, please get in touch with Marcus or another member of the team in Derby, Leicester, or Nottingham on 0800 024 1976 or via our online enquiry form.

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