THE death of a 28-year-old student nurse – who passed away from sepsis after waiting for 12 hours in A&E – could not have been avoided, a coroner has ruled.
Zoe Bell arrived at Stoke Mandeville Hospital – one of the hospitals where she worked shifts as a nurse – with community acquired pneumonia.
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She had been taking on extra shifts at hospitals in Bucks to help finance the last stage of her studies, a coroner was told.
The dedicated student, who finished her last 12-hour shift on Sunday, December 18 2022, began to suffer with a sore throat and struggled to get words out.
She continued to deteriorate and was rushed to A&E on December 23 2022.
Ms Bell had arrived with her boyfriend, Phillip Ayres, shortly after 10pm and she began suffering severe chest pain about an hour and a half later.
Nurses checked Ms Bell while she was at the hospital but said her oxygen levels were normal and tried to test for tonsillitis.
By 4.30am Ms Bell and Mr Ayres were still in the waiting area but she developed “agonising” chest, back and shoulder pain, he told the inquest in a statement.
Ms Bell coughed up a small amount of blood in a sick bowl, but it was only after 10am on Christmas Eve that medics saw an X-ray which showed significant amounts of fluid on her lungs.
She continued to deteriorate and her father, Nick Bell, arrived at hospital just in time to see her being rushed into ICU at 12.30pm, the inquest heard.
Ms Bell died the same evening at 6.45pm.
A post-mortem examination concluded Ms Bell, of High Wycombe, had died of staphylococcal septicaemia, bronchopneumonia, an acute lung injury due to influenza and a viral infection.
Today at Beaconsfield Coroner’s Court, the senior coroner for Buckinghamshire Crispin Butler concluded that Ms Bell’s death could not have been prevented.
Mr Butler said his conclusion did not “diminish the loss of a young, previously healthy lady who aspired to a career in nursing to help others”.
“On the 23rd to the 24th of December, it is clear that the A&E department was busy and the triage to first assessment process was prolonged, but the process and the system was in place and staff were working to operate in that process”, Mr Butler said.
The coroner said Ms Bell had not initially presented as very unwell so it was “entirely understandable” that her case was not escalated.
“On the balance of probabilities, there was no real prospect of effective antibiotic treatment from the time Zoe arrived at Stoke Mandeville Hospital”, Mr Butler said.
“Any indication of alternative, earlier pathway to the treatment falls into the area of speculation, upon which I can make no – on balance – causative link.”
The inquest had heard how an X-ray had been ordered for Zoe at 7.32am, but despite a member of staff logging in to look at it shortly afterwards, it was not escalated until around 10am.
“There is learning”, the coroner told the hearing. “It did not change the outcome for Zoe, sadly.”
Mr Butler added: “Zoe Bell died at Stoke Mandeville Hospital from a rare and complex lung infection which led to a rapid decline on the day of her death and which was not – on the balance of probabilities – treatable within the timescale of her attendance at hospital at around 10.15am on December 23 2022 onwards.”
The coroner concluded Ms Bell died of ‘natural causes’ but said he would consider whether to order a prevention of future deaths report at a further hearing in January.
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