This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

A hospital has apologised to the family of a woman with disabilities who died after staff failed to carry out basic checks when she was admitted suffering from a bout of vomiting.

Katy Lowry, 30, who had physical and learning disabilities, collapsed and died shortly after arriving at the Royal Cornwall hospital.

The senior Cornwall coroner Emma Carlyon said the failings amounted to neglect, which contributed to Lowry’s death.

Lowry was taken to hospital in December 2016 because she had been vomiting every 15 minutes for more than 24 hours.

She arrived at 5.51pm, was seen in triage at 6.13pm and transferred to the ambulatory emergency care unit in A&E a few minutes later. She collapsed in the unit at 8.34pm and was pronounced dead at 10.15pm. She did not regain consciousness after the collapse.

The coroner said she had died of natural causes but neglect had contributed. She said that failure to carry out basic observations and adequate assessment of Lowry when she arrived at the hospital “led or contributed to her death”.

A consultant surgeon who gave evidence as an expert witness, Andrew Wyman, told the inquest that if treatment had begun more quickly Lowry would not have died.

A triage nurse who had been on duty said he had felt it was “inappropriate” to remove some of Lowry’s clothing when she was admitted. He denied that he had decided not to do this because she was in a wheelchair and it would have taken too long.

After the inquest in Truro, Lowry’s brother Christopher said: “This has been a terrible and needless loss of Katy’s life.

“We have been let down by the people that are here to care for all of us and everyone is entitled to a basic level of care, including those with a disability.

“We wanted to know the true cause of Katy’s death – was this detectable, treatable and her death preventable. Sadly we know the answer is yes to all three.”

The family said Lowry had greeted everyone with a smile and without her their lives were less colourful.

Her brother added: “Katy, we miss your laughter, your singing, your sparkly shoes and socks and your pennies left all over the house, we even miss the sound of your noisy toys.”

Speaking on behalf of the Royal Cornwall hospitals NHS trust, chief nurse Kim O’Keeffe said: “We would like to extend our sincere apologies to Katy’s family. The circumstances and actions that led to her sad death should not have happened.

“These failures were reflected in the ‘inadequate’ rating given by the Care Quality Commission (CQC). Over the past 12 months we have been strenuously working to be an improving trust in safety, governance and delay and we are committed to learning from the investigation into Katy’s care.”

The CQC report rated safety at the trust as inadequate. In a detailed report on the trust, it said: “We found people were at risk of unsafe care and avoidable harm in some areas we visited. Comprehensive risk assessments were not carried out for some patients and not all risk management plans were developed in line with national guidance. Risks were not managed positively.”

Vaughan Temby from the group disAbility Cornwall and Isles of Scilly said: “Katy would still be here if she had not been viewed as a disabled person first but as a patient first.”



Lowry’s cause of death was recorded as pulmonary aspiration.