"It was a fiasco!": Grieving mum slams A&E delays that contributed to 12-year-old son's death

Crucial delays in treating a critically ill 12-year-old old boy with a history of heart problems after he collapsed and was admitted to a hospital A&E contributed to his death, a coroner has concluded.

Joel Thomas Rawlinson was on his Playstation at home in Middleton when he collapsed on Sunday night, December 29, 2019. But when he was brought into North Manchester General Hospital that night medics concentrated on trying to find out the cause of the problems instead of recognising how poorly he was so that he could be moved to a specialist children’s hospital, an inquest heard.

Joel had undergone successful major surgery just weeks after his birth to repair a damaged aorta, the major artery coming from the heart. But the youngster, who recovered well and loved playing football for Middleton Lads, collapsed at home because of an aneurysm and later died in hospital of cardiac respiratory failure.

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An internal NHS review of his death found medics should have discussed transferring him to a specialist children's hospital by 1am the following day, December 30, but this didn't happened until around 9am when it was too late, an inquest at Manchester Coroners' Court was told on Monday.

The inquest heard 'stretched' hospital staff tried to phone colleagues at Royal Manchester Children's Hospital instead of using the North West Transport Service (NWTS), through which district general hospitals are supposed to arrange for transfer to Royal Manchester Children's Hospital or Alder Hey Children's Hospital.

Staff were even said to have used fax to send over key information about Joel, an archaic practice that is said to have ended only in 2022.