A Derbyshire hospital has admitted liability for a father-of-three’s death after failure to prescribe the correct antibiotics for an infection developed after routine surgery. Simon Tulitt, 62, of Yoxall, Burton-on-Trent, died from multiple organ failure on 31 May 2013 at Royal Derby Hospital after doctors failed to treat sepsis, which was contracted after under-going key hole surgery for a cancerous growth on his bowel.
His wife, Janet Tulitt, 58, has spent the past five years demanding answers from Derby Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the hospital, and the clinical negligence case, led by Nelsons, has been settled for an undisclosed sum.
Janet said:
“My husband went into hospital for non-emergency surgery on 28 May 2013, and instead of taking him home three days later like we expected, my family had the devastating task of turning off his life support.
“This shouldn’t have happened. Simon was very active, he went swimming or to the gym regularly, his attitude to life was to keep fit and healthy. I’ll never forget the way he looked after surgery – he was such a strange colour and he was struggling to breathe, it was clear that he wasn’t well.
“Nothing will fill the loss I feel for my husband and the loss our children feel for their dad but I’m very grateful to the lawyers at Nelsons who have helped us fight for Simon. The hospital failed so poorly in its basic duty of care and we worry that years later the lessons of Simon’s needless death haven’t been learnt.
“So we hope that the hospital does learn an important lesson and is forced to make a change. It was an incredibly difficult and long fight for our family, but it will have been worth it if no other family has to go through the avoidable pain and suffering we have.
“I want to see the hospital ensure processes are followed, without delay – had the proper processes been followed for Simon he could still be with us today.”
Mr Tulitt contracted sepsis after his operation as a consequence of not having appropriate antibiotic cover for the surgery and then did not receive the appropriate antibiotics to prevent the sepsis from spreading. Mr Tulitt had a penicillin allergy.
At an inquest into Mr Tulitt’s death in 2016, the Court heard criticism of Derby Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust – with medical experts citing failures to recognise and manage sepsis and a failure to administer appropriate antibiotics in a timely fashion before and after surgery.
Baishali Clayton and Kate Harrison, expert clinical negligence solicitors from our Medical Negligence team, acted on behalf of Mrs Tulitt.
Kate said:
“Mr Tulitt was not provided with the proper care he needed and following a series of avoidable errors died the day he was due to be discharged.
“There were delays in administering antibiotics and mistakes made in the administration of medicine that could have saved his life.
“We are pleased that Mrs Tulitt and her family have received the apology and action from the Trust they deserved. We hope they receive some closure from the outcome.”
Following Mr Tulitt’s death, Derby Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has created a sepsis care bundle, which has been implemented in all emergency areas and onto six wards.
Derby Teaching Hospitals said:
“We sincerely regret the failures in the care we provided to Mr Tulitt in May 2013. We offer our heartfelt apology to the family for their tragic loss and we hope the compensation which has now been agreed will provide them with financial security. In the five years since Mr Tulitt’s death we have made significant progress in our detection and early treatment of sepsis. As a result of the improvements which have been made the Trust now has one of the region’s lowest in-patient mortality rates for sepsis. Patients receiving treatment in our hospitals now have a 32% lower chance of dying of sepsis in Derby than the national average.”