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Clinical Negligence Solicitors

Six year old girl dies of meningitis after delayed diagnosis (12 September 2017)

Date: 12/09/2017
Duncan Lewis, Clinical Negligence Solicitors, Six year old girl dies of meningitis after delayed diagnosis

Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust reveals a report into the failure to diagnose meningitis, in the case of a six year old girl, before she died of the disease.

When Kirsty Ermenekli brought her daughter into Royal Oldham Hospital on 3rd February at 8:30pm, Layla-Rose had a high temperature, a head ache and was complaining of stomach ache.

After a triage nurse assessed the little girl’s need for a doctor, the mother and daughter waited for more than half an hour. The subsequent wait for a doctor, brought the total wait time up to an hour and fifty minutes.

The doctor spotted a mark on Layla-Rose’s hip, which was dismissed as a bruise. This information wasn’t recorded or communicated to Kirsty. Layla-Rose was diagnosed with having a virus, which lead to her discharge.

A sister nurse prevented the mother and daughter from leaving, insisting a transfer to the paediatric ward. There, the mark was picked up by a junior doctor, who was advised by the previous doctor that it was nothing more than a bruise.

Thirty minutes later, a locum doctor recognised the rash as evidence of Meningococcal meningitis and septicaemia and started treatment for sepsis. By this point, the treatment was not effective and the rash spread.

Layla-Rose went into cardiac arrest and died the following morning.

The time taken to recognise Layla-Rose’s rash resulted in a delayed diagnosis and prevented the treatment from taking affect before her condition became critical.

The failure is most pertinent when Kirsty’s concerns were dismissed, elongating the time taken to interpret the symptoms and correctly diagnose Layla-Rose.

The report by Pennine Acute Hospitals Trust revealed that the delayed diagnosis escalated after the second doctor, who alluded to the mark, was reassured by the first that it was no more than a bruise. The report concluded that:

“[The] failure to recognise a ‘bruise’ as a purpuric rash and therefore as an indicator of meningococcal sepsis” caused Layla-Rose to receive delayed treatment.

The report has advised that doctors should receive additional training to help identify the nature of rashes, with a staff wide warning to take extra care to consider sepsis when diagnosing children.

Kirsty and her family support the meningitis now campaign and have raised £10,000 towards research. They are campaigning for all children below sixteen years old to have an inoculation against the disease.

Dr Jawad Husain, the Medical Director at The Royal Oldham Hospital, has expressed his condolences, responding to the report as follows:

"We have carried out a thorough investigation into the care and circumstances surrounding Layla’s death and have shared our findings with her parents [and] provide feedback and support.”

Rebecca Thomas, Director of Clinical Negligence at Duncan Lewis comments:

“The Meningitis Research Foundation estimates that 3200 people in the UK get meningitis each year. Although the number of reported cases have dropped considerably, the fact remains that 1 in 10 people with meningitis will die and those that survive maybe left with serious and life changing side effects. Improved training and education for all relevant medical practitioners should improve the detection and therefore treatment of this disease”.

Duncan Lewis Clinical Negligence Solicitors

The Duncan Lewis Clinical Negligence team has significant experience acting in a vast array of claims. Varying from accident and emergency failures to GP negligence claims, to misdiagnosed fractures to wrongful death matters claims. They also act for children and adults who have suffered profound and permanent brain, spinal or neurological injuries and associated disabilities as a consequence of failings in medical care in both NHS and private hospitals. If you have any queries relating to Clinical Negligence or think that you may have a claim, please do not hesitate to contact our team of expert solicitors on 03337720409.


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