A young British woman tragically died from a fatal lung clot triggered by her contraceptive pill after being misdiagnosed with a virus by hospital staff, a coroner has found.
Chloe Alicia Ellis, 29, from Dewsbury, had been taking the combined oral contraceptive pill Yasmin to help manage her endometriosis since September 2023. In August 2024, she experienced sudden chest and back pain alongside breathlessness and contacted NHS 111 online for help, telling them she was on the Pill, reports MailOnline.
The online assessment flagged up a potentially deadly pulmonary embolism and urged her to go straight to A&E. However, vital information from the NHS 111 service was never passed on to medcial staff at Dewsbury District Hospital.
At her inquest, coroner Oliver Longstaff concluded that hospital doctors failed to take a full medical history and overlooked the fact that she was using oral contraception. She sent home after being told she had a viral illness.
Just three days later, Chloe collapsed at home and died at Leeds General Infirmary on 3 September 2024.
Mr Longstaff said: “Had a history of her oral contraceptive use been obtained when Chloe attended a local hospital emergency department on 31 August 2024, she would have been given anticoagulation medication and undergone tests that would have revealed the pulmonary embolism. She would have received effective treatment for the pulmonary embolism and, on the balance of probabilities, would not have died three days later.”
A pulmonary embolism happens when a clot – often starting in a leg vein – travels to the lung and blocks the blood supply. This can quickly become fatal.
The coroner added that Dewsbury District Hospital had not been set up to access NHS 111 online assessments, despite this being “possible”, and noted that sharing this data could help to prevent similar tragedies.
West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board, which oversees the hospital, said: “We are very sorry to hear about what happened to Chloe, and our sincere condolences go to her loved ones. We have been reviewing the points raised by the coroner and we are working with all our relevant partners to understand the learning and the current arrangements to establish what changes are required in order to prevent similar losses in future.”
The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) states that the combined pill — which contains oestrogen and progestogen — can raise the risk of blood clots, although it insists “the benefits far outweigh the risk of serious side effects”.
High levels of oestrogen increase the number of clotting substances in the blood, raising the chance of a dangerous clot. If a clot breaks off, it can lodge in the lungs or travel to the brain and cause a stroke.
Around a quarter of all women aged 15 to 49 in the UK take some form of oral contraceptive, with 3 million prescriptions annually for the combined pill and 4 million for the progestogen-only mini pill. The Faculty of Sexual & Reproductive Healthcare estimates that around 1 per cent of women on the Pill may be at risk of blood clots.
The Express has reached out to the West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board for further comment.