Trainee accountant died from sepsis after hospital failed to give antibiotics

Amir Halling died from sepsis
John Dunne @jhdunne8 October 2018

A trainee accountant died of sepsis after he was sent home from hospital without being given potentially life-saving antibiotics in failings which amounted to “neglect”, a coroner said.

Amir Halling, 39, went to accident and emergency at Hillingdon Hospital after he banged his leg and the limb flared up.

His wound was examined and he was diagnosed as possibly having deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and was sent home and told to return for a scan.

But he was dead within 24 hours, with problems with his care being compounded by a shortage of intensive care beds.

Speaking afterwards, his father Mohamed said: “We are satisfied the word neglect was used by the coroner. We think it is shameful that the hospital did not give antibiotics when we first went there.

“I didn’t expect to take my son home in a body bag. Hospitals need to be more aware of sepsis, Hillingdon let us down. He had a degree in computing and accounts, he had his life ahead of him its a tragedy. We are angry and devastated.”

Mr Halling was only given paracetomol and fluids despite having very low blood pressure and being in pain when he was examined at around 2.40am on May 16, 2016, West London Coroners’ Court was told.

Mr Halling, who lived in Slough with his parents and was training to be an a accountant, returned to the hospital for a scan at 11am but his condition deteriorated and he was admitted to the hospital’s Emergency Medical Unit.

At 5.25pm a specialist from intensive care examined him but did not deem his condition serious enough to be given an intensive care bed.

However, shortly afterwards a consultant and the matron in the emergency care unit requested he be given a bed so he could be given more specialist treatment as his heart rate fell and his wound gave off a “foul” stench.

He was not passing urine and a series of tests indicated his body was “shutting down”, the three-day inquest was told.

Matron Liz Kelleher told the court: “I found his leg looked discoloured and his blood pressure had dropped.” She requested to move Mr Halling to intensive care but no bed was available.

Dr Ruth Griffin, who was in charge of care on the intensive care unit, said that she had decided to move a patient to make space for Mr Halling. However this had taken longer than expected, the inquest heard.

She told the hearing: “My hands were tied I was hoping against hope a bed would become available.”

At around 8pm Mr Halling suffered a cardiac arrest. He was resuscitated and then taken to an intensive care bed but shortly after arriving suffered a second arrest and died.

Microbiologist and expert on antibiotics Dr Arup Ghosh told the court that in his opinion, if antibiotics had been given to Mr Halling when he first went to A&E, he may have survived.

He said: “Early antibiotic treatment is crucial (for sepsis).”

Asked if he should have been administered antibiotics when he first was seen in hospital he replied “yes”.

He said: “That would have potentially changed the outcome.”

Assistant Coroner Catherine Wood said in her conclusion last Friday: “Mr Amir Halling died as a result of sepsis due to cellulitis contributed to by neglect. The failure to admit him and give him antibiotics was a serious failure.” She told the inquest the fact that Mr Halling’s blood pressure was so abnormal he should not have been sent home.

She added: “Sadly Mr Halling was not admitted and was sent home.”

Of the delay to find an intensive care bed the Coroner said she could not find a direct “causal” link with the death.

However she added: “I accept there were clear issues in the care provided. He was clearly sick and needed intensive care which was not provided.”

Family solicitor Lynda Reynolds, of Hugh James, said: “Tragically, we are working with an increasing number of bereaved families on sepsis cases where hospitals have failed to recognise and address the symptoms to prevent the loss of life, and it never gets easier to hear that someone’s death could have been prevented.”

Hillingdon said it had accepted in advance of the inquest that there were failings in its care of Mr Halling. and had apologised. It said it had improved its management of sepsis.

“The coroner specifically recognised that the trust are taking actions and have learned from this tragic incident,” it said. “We are not complacent and are continuing to monitor our processes for sepsis and implement further improvements in screening and management.”

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in