Hospital's sepsis errors caused girl's 'preventable' death

A three-year-old girl’s death could have been prevented if hospital staff had followed sepsis guidelines, a coroner ruled.

Zadie Ajetunmobi was taken to Broomfield Hospital, Essex, with a temperature of 40 degrees (104F) on 10 November 2022, the inquest at Essex Coroner's Court heard.

She died less than 10 hours later after suffering a cardiac arrest, with post-mortem tests showing her death was from complications associated with sepsis.

Essex senior coroner, Lincoln Brookes, who recorded Zadie's medical cause of death as pneumonia and bronchiolitis, said if staff had adhered to the sepsis treatment pathway immediately, "her death would likely have been prevented.”

He said that if the sepsis protocol had been followed, the three-year-old "would have been commenced upon and treated" within an hour of her arrival at hospital.

In a later report provided to the family by the Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust, it was disclosed that staff had failed to update local sepsis guidance since 2017.

Zadie's parents, Theo and Rhiannon, said that if the correct procedure had been followed, she would have had a potentially life-saving dose of intravenous antibiotics.

Instead, the medicine was not administered for more than seven hours following her arrival.

Zadie Ajetunmobi’s parents said: "We are, of course, devastated to have heard very clearly in the last two days that Zadie's death was avoidable. This is a tragedy from which we will never recover and which we hope no other parents ever have to endure.

"No apology, coroner or NHS report can take away our heartache or bring our beautiful little girl back."