Loving son, 22, died hours after A&E doctors missed fatal diagnosis and let him go home

A disabled man who ‘made the best of his life’ died just hours after A&E doctors let him leave without blood tests or a proper diagnosis.

Billy Longshaw, from Heaton Norris in Stockport, died on March 7 last year, less than 24 hours after being released from an emergency department in Swindon. The 22-year-old, who was born with D-2-hydroxyglutaric aciduria, a rare condition that causes progressive damage to the brain and affects muscle tone, speech, vision and memory, went to the Great Western Hospital after having sudden abdominal pain and vomiting on a car journey.

Billy, who had 'significant learning difficulties', was assessed by a junior doctor in A&E, who found everything to be normal. In fact, Billy was suffering with ‘sigmoid volvulus’ - a twisted intestine which would quickly turn fatal.

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In a report to prevent future deaths written after the inquest, Chris Morris, area coroner for Manchester South, raised concerns about the hospital’s failure to diagnosis the fatal condition. He said Billy had been allowed to leave 'without basic blood tests being taken, any diagnosis being made, or serious abdominal pathology being fully excluded'.

“On the balance of probabilities, the sigmoid volvulus which led to Mr Longshaw’s death was present (albeit at an early stage) when he was assessed in Swindon. " Billy, who was described by his grieving mother as ‘funny’ and ‘a character’ at the pre-inquest hearing, had discharged himself just hours before he died.

In the report, Mr Morris said Billy should not have been allowed to leave and that junior doctors needed ‘adequate’ training on the Mental Capacity Act. Mr Morris said that there was a ‘missed