Woman died of sepsis after being 'abandoned in hospital corridor', inquest told.

A woman died of sepsis after being “abandoned” for ten hours on a hospital trolley in a busy A&E corridor, an inquest was told.

Tamara Davis, 31, was left to “fend for herself” as she coughed up blood in the corridor of the A&E department at Royal Sussex County Hospital, Brighton in December 2022.

She had been taken to hospital after complaining of breathing difficulties and collapsing at home and was diagnosed with a respiratory infection and initially placed in a resuscitation room and given oxygen.

However, she was moved into the corridor when another patient needed the room and left on a trolley, even as her condition became progressively worse. 

The inquest at West Sussex coroner’s court heard that, at one stage, there were 20 patients being treated in the hospital corridor as there was “nowhere else to put patients.”

When Tamara Davis’s condition deteriorated she was moved back to a resuscitation cubicle and, from there, to intensive care where she died the next day from sepsis, a life-threatening condition that occurs when the body’s immune system overreacts to an infection or injury.

In a statement, Tamara Davis’s sister, Miya, told the inquest: “In the few hours [she was in A&E] she was being made to fend for herself. She was abandoned in that corridor at her most vulnerable moments, coughing up blood and suffering from diarrhoea.”

West Sussex coroner, Joanne Andrews, said she would write to the Department of Health and NHS England to voice her concerns over the use of corridors to treat patients.

Recording a conclusion of death by natural causes, she said: “In relation to the use of corridors, this does to me create a substantial concern. There is no evidence that the patient having been placed in a corridor caused, or contributed to, her death in these circumstances.”

The consultant who treated Tamara Davis in the corridor, Dr Andrew Leonard, said that, although she was negative for sepsis on arrival on December 10, her deterioration would have meant that she was “diagnosable” at 4.30pm the following day but she was not diagnosed until after 6pm because her worsening condition was not flagged to the medical team until then.

Dr Leonard said: “Anyone being looked after in a corridor is a concern because it is a failure of normal care processes. Unfortunately we live in a world where more corridor care has become increasingly the norm in the last few years and that is a tragedy and not something any doctor or nurse would say is a good idea but is a result of pressures on the system.”

The inquest heard that Tamara Davis had spent ten hours on the trolley with other sick patients nearby. Her cause of death was given as sepsis and multiple organ failure brought on by broncho-pneumonia and influenza.

After the inquest, Miya said: “It was like a war zone. It was terrible in there. A hospital is somewhere where you are meant to feel safe if you’re sick, but that hospital was anything but.”