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English NHS trust fined over safety failings linked to death of Powys man

18 May 2022 4 minute read
Royal Shrewsbury Hospital. Photo via Google

An NHS trust in England has been fined £533,334 after the death of a man from Newtown, Powys after failing to provide safe care.

Max Dingle, from Powys, died in May 2020 after his head became trapped between a bed rail and a mattress.

The fine was part of a total of £1,333,334 after Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust also failed to provide safe care to another patient who died after suffering severe blood loss while undergoing dialysis in 2019.

Passing sentence on the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust, Senior District Judge Paul Goldspring said the families of the two patients who died at Royal Shrewsbury Hospital in 2019 and 2020 had suffered “unimaginable grief”.

The judge imposed a fine of £533,334 over a charge brought in relation to the death of Max Dingle, 83, from Newtown, and an additional £800,000 on one of two charges relating to the death of 31-year-old Mohammed Ismael Zaman.

The judge said the offences were aggravated by a fine the trust received in 2016 and a “poor health and safety record in the management of” Royal Shrewsbury Hospital.

He added that the charges were mitigated by the trust carrying out “full and extensive investigations immediately after both incidents”.

The trust, which was recently the subject of a highly critical report into the maternity services it offered between 2000 and 2019, admitted the charges through its barrister at Telford Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday.

Opening the facts of the case against the trust, the CQC’s lawyer Ryan Donoghue said the failures in care provided to Mr Zaman “were the legal cause of his death, for which the trust is responsible”.

Mr Donoghue added that Mr Dingle’s “head was trapped between the bed rails and mattress” after he was admitted with chronic lung disease.

An alarm was immediately raised when Mr Dingle was found, the court heard, and he was freed, but he died from a cardiac arrest.

Referring to the death of Mr Dingle, Mr Donoghue said: “The basis (of the guilty plea) is that the failures exposed him to a significant risk of avoidable harm.”

Special bond

In a victim impact statement which was read to the court, Mr Dingle’s son Phil said they had shared a “very special bond” for 57 years.

He also paid tribute to the retired policeman, who lived in Newtown in mid-Wales, as a “mountain of a man” who was always the source of great advice.

The pensioner’s son flew back to the UK from his home in Australia to visit his father, but was told he had died before having chance to see him.

The victim impact statement read: “Dad’s death was a total shock to me. I had been told he was responding positively (to treatment).”

Mr Dingle said he been left with a sense of injustice and an image of his father dying an unnatural death “similar to someone in quicksand.”

His statement added: “It seemed that the Trust were trying to whitewash what occurred.

“I do not believe all the circumstances of the death were provided to the pathologist.”

Mr Dingle, who watched the proceedings via a video-link, said the death should have been treated as “potential manslaughter.”

Tragedies

The trust’s barrister Iain Daniels described the deaths as “two tragedies” and offered the trust’s sincere sympathies to the men’s families.

Mr Daniels said the trust acknowledged that training had been inadequate.

He told the court: “We suggest the trust has shown considerable insight into what has gone wrong in these accidents.

“It is accepted that more could have been done and of course should have been done to eliminate risks.”

The trust, which costs £1.3million a day to operate, is suffering significant financial pressures and has around 600 vacant staff positions.

Mr Daniels added: “Mr Dingle’s son’s statement has powerfully brought home in court today the effect of failings, whether causative (of death) or not, upon a family and for that again we are deeply sorry.

“It is accepted that the failures were avoidable.”

An independent review of maternity services, chaired by Donna Ockenden and published in March, found “repeated errors in care” at the trust, which led to injury to either mothers or their babies.

Some 201 babies could have – or would have – survived if the trust had provided better care, the report said.


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Y Cymro
Y Cymro
1 year ago

This is the English NHS the likes of Welsh Tory antagonist Andrew RT Davies wants Wales to align itself to. And don’t get me wrong. This is no attack or criticism of Doctor & Nurses etc .. who work their socks off under such duress. It’s the English Tory Government who are covertly privatising the English NHS running it down to the point where they hope the English public will turn against it and embrace an American-style private health care system slippery slope.

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