Bristol Children's Hospital being investigated after child deaths
Bristol Children's Hospital is being investigated after concerns were raised by three couples whose children died there.
The Sunday Express reported yesterday that the families claim their children - all heart patients - died following neglect.
According to the newspaper, a fourth family says poor treatment led to their son’s brain damage.
It is understood that the hospital will scrutinise its last 50 child heart deaths.
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These allegations follow the Bristol heart scandal in the 1980s and 1990s - when at least 35 babies died.
As previously reported in The Post, three of the families have begun legal action against the hospital trust and government watchdog the Care Quality Commission has launched an investigation.
Seven-year-old Luke Jenkins, from Cardiff, and Sean Turner, four, from Warminster, Wiltshire, had the same heart operation last spring.
Both died with their parents believing they lacked adequate medical and nursing care.
Jack Casey, now three, from Bridgend, South Wales, nearly died when surgeons pierced his lung lining in March 2010, leaving him with brain damage.
Tiffany White and James Willcox, from Gloucester, also allege neglect in the case of their son Oscar who died in April at nine weeks.
University Hospitals Bristol Trust said: “It is important to stress how complex the needs of these children are. Incidents do occur in a complex speciality such as paediatric cardiac services where we are caring for some of the sickest children in the region.
“Each incident, no matter how minor it may appear, is recorded, rigorously investigated and actions taken forward as part of our clinical governance process.”
Comments
by RBW01
Tuesday, October 16 2012, 10:16AM
“Following the review into children's heart services and the recommended closure of 3 units around the country, the staffing needs to be sorted immediately as Bristol are going to have to nearly double their workload! If they can't cope now, how are they going to cope with all these extra patients? Is that safe or sustainable?”
by swwhag
Monday, October 15 2012, 10:48PM
“Included in the recommendations from the 2001 Public Inquiry Report into the Bristol Paediatric Cardiac problems are:
"Health and care professionals working in teams should be regularly participating in clinical and quality governance and continuously measuring and monitoring indicators on the quality of care they are providing, identifying areas for improvement and reporting within their organisation. They should be using data from a range of quality metrics and other sources of intelligence, including clinical audits and peer review and patient feedback"
"For the future, there must be two developments. There must be agreed and published standards of clinical care for healthcare professionals to follow, so that patients and the public know what to expect. There must also be standards for hospitals as a whole. Hospitals which do not meet these standards should not be able to offer services within the NHS."
The bereaved parents have a right to know whether the hospital was caring for their children according to agreed and published national standards, not only for surgery, but aftercare.
If it is the case that surgeons and other staff were too overworked to provide care to agreed, published standards of safety, it was their professional duty to inform their clinical leaders so that patients were not put at unacceptable risk.
If they did not do this, then Bristol has learned nothing from the Heart Scandal of the 1990s.”
by spyinthecamp
Monday, October 15 2012, 5:17PM
“It's right and proper for this to be fully investagated, however my son was treated there and the care was amazing so please don't let this cloud the amazing work they do.”
by tenpounds
Monday, October 15 2012, 4:11PM
“No surgeon goes in to the op to save a child from brain damage or death looking to fail,its the work load and stress put on them,dont blame the surgeons as there is not enough to deal with the work load,a man or woman working to many hours eventually they will break and make mistakes so who is really to blame?Goverment Remember a surgeons stress if i miss an hour or a day people die through lack of staff,”
by tenpounds
Monday, October 15 2012, 3:06PM
“When i was at the bri waiting for ops surgeons were canceling ops while patients where waiting in there gowns to go down for there ops they had to go deal with more serious accidents so they have been runing backward and forward from the bri to the childrens ward so if sergeons are in the middle of a op what do they do rush the op to get to a more serious one or drop there tools because they are understaffed with sergeons scream out for more sergeons”
by tenpounds
Monday, October 15 2012, 2:42PM
“Clearly under staffed not enough surgeons at hand and the surgeons over worked so what do u exspect,been there with my children and they are clearly overun,been to the bri waited 3 weeks to have a operation on a broken hand at xmas time and new years no sergeons long waiting times god help if any one end up there at that time of the year nhs is **** if u can afford private go private sad fact”
by Bristol
Monday, October 15 2012, 10:23AM
“For More information surrounding these cases http://tinyurl.com/9yzq726 @bristolinquiry”