A two-month-old baby’s life was cut short after nursing staff at the hospital where she was being cared for turned off the alarms monitoring her condition. Baby Louella Sheridan’s four alarms on the machine checking her oxygen saturation, respiratory rate, heart rate and blood pressure were switched by nurses at Royal Bolton Hospital, which Coroner John Pollard found contributed to her death.
Mr Pollard, highly critical of the hospital, concluded: “It’s reasonable to conclude if the alarms had not been silenced on the monitor, they would have alerted staff to the collapse and they would have worked on her for some time and her life would have been extended albeit perhaps for a very short period.”
Louella was born with a heart condition at Royal Bolton, and was sent to Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool for surgery. She was discharged and returned home under the care of community nurses.
Although she had health issues, the little girl was expected to live a “comparatively normal life”, an inquest into her death heard.
The inquest found that the primary cause of her death was Covid-19, however when she was being seen by doctors, they did not treat her for the respiratory illness.
The coroner said that it was “significant” that nobody had asked if the baby had come into contact with anyone positive for Covid.
Dr Thomas Webster told the inquest that the medical care given to Louella was “acceptable” but he accepted that it was unacceptable if the alarms monitoring her had been turned off.
Prior to Louella’s final moments, nurse Kirsten Norris “repeatedly silenced the alarm” on Louella’s monitor and then turned it off, the coroner found.
Then nurse Hannah Malone took over the care of the baby and she noticed the alarms had been “silenced”. When Louella collapsed, her mother Casey, who was at her bedside, called Nurse Malone to help.
The coroner said that the nurse “demonstrated a serious lack of understanding” of the paediatrics early warning system – PEWS.
During her evidence the nurse accepted that she should have escalated the case quicker.
After the hearing, mum Casey said: “Louella deserved a chance to live but as a family we feel that the actions taken by the hospital’s staff took that chance away from her. Not a day has gone by, in the 20 months since her death, that we haven’t relived that night and wished our daughter was here with us.
“Louella was our precious baby girl and is missed very much by her brothers and sisters, who will also be affected by her loss for the rest of their lives.
“The only small comfort we have is that the inquest and our legal case might stop the same thing from happening to other vulnerable babies. That’s our only hope.”
Rachael Heyes, a specialist medical negligence solicitor at the family’s law firm JMW, said: “The inquest process has been harrowing for Casey and Granville [Louella’s dad] and only made worse by the handling of it by the hospital, which caused the hearing to be delayed by more than a year.
“We welcome the coroner’s verdict and hope his comments serve as a warning to staff. No patient should have monitoring equipment turned off, particularly not a vulnerable baby. The conclusion of the inquest brings some closure for Casey and Granville and although they will never fully recover from this tragedy, is an important milestone for them.”
