According to a report, the avoidable death of a baby boy in Bristol demonstrates how hospital responses that are "defensive" and "insensitive" frequently make mistakes worse.
At Bristol Children's Hospital, Ben Condon passed away at the age of eight weeks from a respiratory infection.
His case was mentioned in a report by the Health Ombudsman that claimed the NHS has an "ingrained defensiveness" when it comes to patients who die needlessly.
Father Ally Condon claimed that the hospital went to "endless lengths" to conceal it.
Ben was born at 29 weeks and was just under 3 pounds at birth. He spent six weeks at Southmead Hospital in Bristol's neonatal intensive care unit.
Ben got a small cough three days after being sent home. Human Metapneumovirus (hMPV) was identified by medical professionals at Bristol Children's Hospital after his condition deteriorated there.
While most children who contract the virus recover fully, Ben's condition deteriorated. On April 17, he suffered a cardiac arrest and passed away.
Ben's death could have been prevented because antibiotics were not given to him quickly enough, it was later discovered.
Mr. Condon, of Weston-super-Mare, stated that he holds the trust accountable for failing to act swiftly and failing to provide information regarding Ben's whereabouts for seven weeks.
"They withheld test results, they told us tests that were never taken were negative, they removed documents from the medical notes - it's endless," he said, according to the BBC.
"It is challenging to discern the truth. ".
After reevaluating the situation in 2017, the Bristol NHS Hospital's Trust and the CQC offered Mr. Condon their sincere apologies.
The trust "missed an opportunity" to give Ben "timely antibiotics," according to a letter from the Care Quality Commission, and this failure contributed to his death.
According to the report, "the trust did not adequately equip and empower its staff to acknowledge when things had gone wrong and to meet its duty of candor.".
"The trust should have taken action to inform Mr. and Mrs. Condon about this in a way that was open and transparent, clear, and comprehensive.
"I want to apologize for not holding the trust accountable. ".
Later this year, a second inquest into the incident is scheduled to take place.
Hospitals "routinely" fail to accept their mistakes, according to Rob Behrens, the health service ombudsman for England, who highlighted this "gaping hole" between policies meant to improve patient safety and actual experience in his report.
The patients were misled. Hospitals are reluctant to disclose a number of incidents in which people are unaware of what happened, he said. Whatever you want to call it, it is a cover-up. I'm speaking with NHS England, and they're telling me that they don't recognize the terms "avoidable harm" and "avoidable death," saying that they are "not helpful.
"Excuse me, but I think that is absurd and needs to be refuted.
. "
