Grieving father's anger at NHS 24

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The father of a toddler who died from meningitis has said failures by NHS 24 staff made it harder to get over his son's death.

Stuart Brown told Edinburgh Sheriff Court the service had not done enough to prevent similar mistakes in the future and still needs more nurses.

Mr Brown made the comments on the final day of a fatal accident inquiry into the death of his 20-month-old son.

He died at Edinburgh's Royal Hospital for Sick Children in April 2006.

Kyle's mother Lisa Thomson, 31, called NHS 24 on 1 April last year when she found him covered in a bruise-like rash which would not fade.

She waited 40 minutes for a call back from a nurse adviser who then sent her to the primary care centre at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary by taxi.

Urgent help

Kyle died the following day from meningococcal septicaemia.

Medical experts told the court Kyle should have been sent directly to the Edinburgh's Royal Hospital for Sick Children by ambulance, as suspected cases of meningitis need urgent medical attention.

Mr Brown, who has represented the family in court each day of the week-long hearing, said they would never know if Kyle would have survived had he received medical treatment sooner.

"Lisa and I are going through this so that it will not happen again," he said.

"But I think it will happen again and I think the NHS need more nursing staff to help."

The inquiry heard Kyle was showing the most severe symptoms

Fiscal depute Lynne Barrie, prosecuting the case, said a number of errors by NHS 24 had resulted in the service failing to treat Kyle's case as an emergency, but said she accepted there was no way of knowing if he could have been saved.

"It appears clear that there were various errors made in the case of Kyle Brown which to an extent were compounded and had the effect of delaying treatment.

"As a whole organisation, NHS 24 didn't treat this case as a medical emergency," said Ms Barrie.

Rory Anderson QC, representing NHS 24, said the system in use by the service has been "fundamentally changed" in light of Kyle's death to prevent such a case ever occurring again.

He said: "In my submission, the evidence before the inquiry was Kyle regrettably had no real possibility of survival even if treatment had commenced 50 minutes or an hour earlier.

"It is accepted that errors were made. In this case it had no effect on the tragic outcome."

Sheriff Andrew Lothian will make his written judgement on the case later.