Distraught mother sues hospital

The hospital trust has defended its actions

A mother is planning legal action against a hospital where her 16-year- old son died after waiting two days for emergency treatment.

Kate Nicholls, from Nailsea near Bristol, claims Frenchay Hospital staff made her son Lee wait because it was a bank holiday weekend.

She said had he been given an angiogram sooner he would have lived.

The hospital admitted the procedure was not available at weekends, but said doctors made decisions about treatment.

"I'm taking legal action because I want someone to hold their hand up and say they were wrong," said Ms Nicholls.

Brain haemorrhage

The teenager died on 29 March 2005 at the hospital near Bristol after suffering a brain haemorrhage.

He had been rushed to the hospital's accident and emergency department on Saturday, 26 March, after collapsing at his home.

The following day, doctors confirmed he had suffered a brain haemorrhage, but told his mother that he could not have an angiogram until the Tuesday - the first day after the Easter Bank Holiday weekend.

He fell into a coma on the morning of the procedure and died later that day.

Mrs Nicholls, a mother-of-eight, was shocked to discover that the procedure was not available at weekends and wrote to the hospital trust.

In a written reply, chief executive of the trust, Sonia Mills, said: "The unit in Frenchay does not perform emergency angiography and aneurysm treatment at the weekend."

Mrs Nicholls has now started legal action against the trust, claiming negligence.

"It is disgusting. My son died because it was a weekend. I feel completely let down by the hospital and the government," she said."

A spokesman for the North Bristol NHS Trust said: "Timings of all operations and procedures depend on the decision of the clinician in charge of the patient.

"In this case the senior consultant in charge of the patient concluded that there was no operative procedure that should be undertaken that weekend that would be of benefit."