The devastated parents of a woman who died when a dirty drip wasn’t removed from her arm for four days are taking action against The Luton and Dunstable hospital NHS Foundation Trust.
28-year-old Claire Allnutt had been recovering well from necrotising fasciitis, a flesh-eating bug, at Luton and Dunstable hospital, reported the MailOnline. She had been in the hospital for two months with the condition and it was then that a contaminated catheter was used by staff to administer antibiotics.
After being left in her arm the drip triggered blood poisoning. Claire’s family have now reported five of the hospital’s medics to the General Medical Council watchdog, claiming that a catalogue of errors led to their daughter’s death.
A Freedom of Information request lodged by the family found that staff could have had just 20 minutes training on a new system called National Early Warning Score, used in Claire’s treatment. The system alerts staff when a patient’s condition is deteriorating but it appears that, although the system showed that Claire’s condition was worsening, staff at the hospital never acted on the alert. Claire subsequently died from septicaemia.
[Re-word] Observation notes showed that, although Claire’s condition had worsened over the weekend, medics decided only to just monitor her and took no action until the Tuesday. But by that time, sepsis had set in and she suffered a number of heart attacks before she passed away in the early hours of the following morning.
Her family have demanded to know why medics took no action to remove the drip, which is known as a PICC line.
A spokesman for the hospital said: “The Luton and Dunstable University hospital has given an unreserved apology to Claire Allnutt’s family following her tragic death last January.
“All staff groups involved in Claire’s case have reflected and learned from the events that occurred prior to Claire’s death, and this has resulted in a number of changes to practice, which are being constantly monitored and evaluated.”
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