Lucas Thomas Munslow died just hours after his parents were told he had tonsillitis and that it was safe to take him home (Picture: Wales News Service)
A child has died just hours after doctors told his parents it was safe to take him home.
Lucas Thomas Munslow, who was just nine months old, was suffering from acute bacterial meningitis, which medical staff had misdiagnosed as tonsillitis.
His parents Kimberley and Nathan rushed him to hospital in May 2019 after he developed a fever and had begun to squint.
The on-call doctor at Glan Clwyd Hospital in Bodelwyddan, North Wales, observed the baby had a red throat and suggested his parents treat his symptoms with a throat spray.
Glan Clwyd Hospital has ‘unreservedly’ accepted the coroner’s finding of ‘poor practice’ with respect to Lucas’s treatment (Picture: Wales News Service)
He was then discharged and taken home, only for his parents to bring him in again the following evening after his condition deteriorated drastically.
Coroner John Gittins said during an inquest into Lucas’s death earlier in November that staff at the hospital had shown ‘poor practice’, adding it was ‘probable’ the child could have been saved.
The family have since succeeded in bringing a claim of clinical negligence and are understood to have reached a five-figure out-of-court settlement with the hospital.
Lucas’s father Nathan has said of the amount paid out: ‘It’s an insult on a baby’s life. His life was worth a lot more than that. The people responsible are still working. It’s not nice.
The hospital added it has reviewed the circumstances around the child’s death to ensure similar mistakes are not made in future (Picture: Wales News Service)
‘We didn’t want to go backwards and forwards. We’ve been on this for five years now, and it would have just been even more time-consuming. We just wanted closure.
‘We’ve got three kids, so need to make sure they’re OK and have our full attention. We’ve got to concentrate on what we’ve got here now.
‘I don’t want anyone else going through what happened to us.’
The family was represented at the inquest by Gamlins Law.
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Simon Roberts, head of the firm’s personal injury and clinical negligence division, said: ‘They hope that, by raising the case of Lucas in the way that they have, they can help to prevent similar tragedies occurring in the future.’
The hospital has since said it accepted the coroner’s findings ‘unreservedly’, adding that it has ‘already reviewed the circumstances’ and ‘identified where we can improve our diagnostic procedures in extremely rare cases such as this.’
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