Deborah Hopkinson
24 Apr 2019 · Coroner Matthew Cox · Manchester (North)
The coroner's concerns
1. equipment failure
“numerous occasions when equipment failure occurred and this is likely to have had some impact on the treatment which the deceased received”
2. delay in specialist consultation
“delay of some 6 days in involving the endocrine consultant at Fairfield Hospital and the reason given during the inquiry was that the computer system was down”
3. analyser downtime
“the analyser for running the cortisol sample was down multiple times during the deceased's admission”
4. CT scanner failure
“CT scanner at Fairfield Hospital was not working”
5. PACS system failure
“MRI scan could not be viewed on the PACS system”
6. specialist advice delay
“delay in obtaining advice from a specialist centre such as Salford Royal Hospital or the Christie Hospital despite a lack of expertise at Fairfield General Hospital”