Baby inquest finds hospital failures after family’s £250K fight

A coroner has discovered neglect and failure to supply satisfactory medical care contributed to the preventable dying of a child.

Hayden Nguyen died aged six days on the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London in 2016.

The conclusion got here after his mother and father spent seven years and £250,000 combating for justice.

In a press release, the hospital stated it was “dedicated to studying from any findings to enhance our practices”.

Senior Coroner Richard Travers stated in his findings that Hayden had “apparent wants that had been merely not met” by clinicians when his mother and father took him to the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in west London in August 2016.

They had been involved a few fever he had however his situation rapidly deteriorated. He had a cardiac arrest and died inside 12 hours of arriving on the hospital. The therapy Hayden obtained, Mr Travers discovered, fell “very severely beneath anticipated requirements” and had he obtained acceptable and well timed care, he would have survived.

An inside investigation by the hospital following Hayden’s dying discovered there had been eight errors within the care he’d obtained, together with failures to determine indicators of septic shock and to behave on irregular check outcomes.

Nevertheless, the unique inquest into Hayden’s dying, held at Westminster Coroner’s Courtroom in 2017, concluded he had died of pure causes.

The coroner, Dr Shirley Radcliffe, had contacted the hospital to boost issues about their investigation.

The hospital produced a second report, which halved the variety of errors discovered and stated the foundation explanation for Hayden’s dying was an an infection “which is understood to have a excessive mortality”.

His mother and father had been incensed by the coroner’s actions and felt they needed to act. “It’s the second worst expertise of my life,” Hayden’s father Tum Nguyen, 44, stated of the primary inquest.

“Having to dwell with the injustice and the dishonesty has been actually tough, which is why the battle for having a second inquest has not likely been a selection for us.”

Acquiring a second inquest required making use of to the Legal professional Basic’s Workplace for permission to go to the Excessive Courtroom to ask judges to overturn the unique conclusion.

In December 2021, two Excessive Courtroom judges agreed {that a} new inquest ought to happen “within the pursuits of justice”.

Whereas they didn’t discover that the unique coroner, Dr Radcliffe, had behaved in a biased method, she was variously described by the judges as being “unwise” and “near being intemperate,” together with her questioning of 1 witness “near the borderline between robustness and unacceptability”.

The BBC approached Dr Radcliffe for remark on the time, however she didn’t reply.

This second inquest, which the household described as being “thorough, detailed and compassionate”, passed off over three weeks at Surrey Coroner’s Courtroom.

The entire course of, together with the Excessive Courtroom problem and authorized charges has price Hayden’s mother and father about £250,000.

“The price does not examine to the injustice,” stated Tum, a social media govt. “So every little thing we did was fully proper. I feel it was incumbent on us to do it as a result of I do know there are different households on the market who cannot essentially afford to do what we did.”

Hayden’s mom Alex, 48, who owns a software program firm, says different households may additionally be too immersed in grief to battle for solutions.

“You are attempting to cope with your grief, and when negligence is concerned, that provides a complete additional layer that you simply then must course of. So for different households, it won’t be attainable financially, but in addition it won’t be attainable due to the grieving course of.”

The couple imagine the authorized steps they took will permit different households to argue that coroners must put the bereaved household on the coronary heart of each inquest, permitting Hayden’s identify to dwell on.

Additionally they hope the second inquest will permit them to completely grieve the lack of their son. “The coroner has opened the likelihood that we will put this to relaxation now,” stated Alex.

“Having an sincere appraisal of what occurred on the night time [Hayden died] and seeing the vast majority of the medical workforce concerned truly be accountable and admit their errors and present that they’d made learnings was fairly therapeutic.”

Lesley Watts, chief govt for Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Basis Belief, stated: “We’re deeply sorry for the lack of child Hayden and provide our condolences to his household throughout this time.

“We stay dedicated to studying from any findings to enhance our practices and make sure the highest requirements of care for each affected person.”