Delayed neurology outpatient appointments increase SUDEP risk
NHS England received 2 coroners' reports about this hazard between 11 May 2023 and 2 Apr 2024.
They came from 2 different coroners in 2 coroner areas. A similar concern was raised again 1 time after the first warning.
A published response was found for 1 of the 1 earlier reports, stating 2 specific actions.
The story, report by report
Spacing grows with the time between reports.
“long waiting times for neurology outpatient appointments was a persistent challenge for the Trust due to capacity issues within the neurology service.”
Original on judiciary.uk ↗ NHS England responded, stating 2 specific actions.Response (PDF) ↗Response (PDF) ↗
“The Trust now has 3 consultant sessions per week for neurology consultants to provide advice and guidance for GPs. This is a new facility which was introduced in May 2023, for GPs to access advice prior to or instead of referring for an outpatient clinic”
Stated timescale: May 2023
“I note that the Trust aims to see urgent referrals within 4 weeks and has committed to making further improvements across its neurology service.”
- 11 months laterClosely relatedConfidence 0.90 · higha different coroner
“The waiting times for outpatient neurology appointments is in the region of 9 months for the trust concerned.”
Original on judiciary.uk ↗ Repeated from the earlier report:waitingtimesoutpatientneurologyappointmentstrust
NHS England responded.Response (PDF) ↗Response (PDF) ↗Response (PDF) ↗
- All reports to NHS England
Each row is one judged link between an earlier and a later report. Open a row to read both quotes, found word for word in the originals.
2023 → 2024Andrew Ewin-Ripp11 months after Nicholas Pennicott · different coronerClosely relatedConfidence 0.90 · high
Closely relatedConfidence 0.90 · highBoth reports identify long waiting times for neurology outpatient appointments as a problem. The earlier report links the delay to staffing shortages, while the later report highlights the risk of SUDEP due to those delays.
Nicholas Pennicott · 11 May 2023
“long waiting times for neurology outpatient appointments was a persistent challenge for the Trust due to capacity issues within the neurology service.”
Original on judiciary.uk ↗ Andrew Ewin-Ripp · 2 Apr 2024
“The waiting times for outpatient neurology appointments is in the region of 9 months for the trust concerned.”
Original on judiciary.uk ↗
Stated action · timescale: May 2023
“The Trust now has 3 consultant sessions per week for neurology consultants to provide advice and guidance for GPs. This is a new facility which was introduced in May 2023, for GPs to access advice prior to or instead of referring for an outpatient clinic”
Stated action
“I note that the Trust aims to see urgent referrals within 4 weeks and has committed to making further improvements across its neurology service.”
No specific action could be extracted with a verified quote.
No specific action could be extracted with a verified quote.
No specific action could be extracted with a verified quote.
- Each report's concerns were extracted by Nemotron 3 Nano on Nebius Token Factory, each with a quote copied from the report.
- Concerns from reports to NHS England at least six months apart were compared by meaning (Qwen3 embeddings) and wording (TF-IDF).
- The closest pairs were judged by Nemotron 3 Super with reasoning on. Only identical or closely related, with confidence of at least 0.70, are shown.
- Every quote was checked by code as an exact substring of the original text. Names of staff and family are redacted, and the deceased are named by report title only.
| Link | Meaning | Wording | Judge | Coroner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 → 2024 | 0.68 | 0.34 | Closely related · 0.90 | different |
Judge model: nvidia/nemotron-3-super-120b-a12b. How Nemotron did the work · Full methodology.
Next
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This shows that a similar concern was raised again after an earlier report. It does not say why, and it is not a finding about any organisation or person. To report an error, see the corrections route.