AN NHS trust in Essex has issued an apology after an elderly woman suffered head injuries and died while in its care.
Peggy McGinn, 87, died in January 2010 while being treated at the award-winning dementia care unit Crystal Centre in Broomfield Hospital, Chelmsford.
Her family say she was left on her own on a number of occasions, suffering a series of painful falls with the last one proving fatal. Records show she fell eight times between October and January while receiving treatment under North Essex Partnership NHS Trust.
Mrs McGinn, a former housewife, mother and grandmother, was originally admitted to hospital following problems with new blood pressure medication in November 2009.
After being admitted to hospital, the family claim they witnessed a general lack of care towards her safety, as she began to suffer bruising to her face, chest and arms and a dislocated shoulder after a series of falls. When the family raised concerns, they say nothing changed.
Mrs McGinn fell on January 14, 2010 and began to suffer severe nosebleeds and vomiting.
A scan revealed the elderly mother-of-two had a bleed on the brain and, despite emergency surgery at Queen’s Hospital in Romford, died as a result of her head injuries.
An inquest is yet to be held into Mrs McGinn’s death but the family hired a law firm to help them establish what happened and settled their case against the trust for £15,000.
Director of Nursing Paul Keedwell said he would be writing to Mrs McGinn’s family, adding: “It seems a legal settlement was proposed by the family’s lawyers which the NHS nationally accepted and we did not know this had been done.
“The family, quite rightly, ask for an apology. I am very happy to see the family, face to face, to say that we are sorry. Learning will happen and I am more than happy to discuss this, face to face, with the family.
“We are very sorry.”
Mrs McGinn’s son Barry said: “We were devastated when mum passed away, but the grief soon turned to anger because she had died as a result of yet another fall.
“We couldn’t understand why she wasn’t being monitored regularly and how this could have been allowed to happen again, so we decided to seek advice about how we could get answers and hold the trust to account.”
“Whilst we know that nothing will bring mum back, we are hoping no-one else will suffer the way she did.
“We hope lessons can be learned that will ensure measures are put in place to prevent these types of incidents happening to other patients.
“In circumstances where an incident does occur, we hope families are given full and honest information.’’
http://www.eadt.co.uk/news/nhs-apologises-to-grieving-family-1-933529
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.