Losing Ben at the age of eight weeks in the paediatric intensive care unit of the Bristol Royal hospital for children in the spring of 2015 was traumatic and heartbreaking for Jenny and Allyn Condon.
In the 10 years since, they say their pain has not eased but, if anything, has been made more acute by the way they have been treated by a health trust as they campaigned to find out why Ben died.
“It has destroyed me,” said Jenny, who tried to kill herself and has post-traumatic stress syndrome. “I’m a broken woman. I’m in constant fight or flight.”
Speaking at the end of a two-week inquest that concluded on Friday – which laid bare failings in Ben’s care and was often contradictory, complex and, as his parents see it, adversarial – Allyn said their precious memories of Ben had been taken away by the approach of the trust that runs the hospital.
Ben was born prematurely on 17 February 2015. In April, he developed breathing difficulties and was taken to the children’s hospital, where doctors diagnosed human metapneumovirus (hMPV), a respiratory infection. He declined rapidly, had two cardiac arrests on 17 April and died.
The Condons were immediately told that no postmortem examination was needed as the cause of death was straightforward. Doctors recorded acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), hMPV and prematurity on his death certificate and his body was cremated. But several weeks after Ben died his parents were told that he also had a bacterial infection.
A first inquest, in 2016, concluded that two respiratory illnesses and prematurity caused Ben’s death, but the next year, after the Condons continued to press, the University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust admitted that a failure to give him antibiotics in a timely manner for the bacterial infection contributed to his death.
In 2021, the NHS ombudsman said Ben died after “a catalogue of failings” in his treatment and there was an attempt to “deceive” his parents. The high court quashed the conclusions of the first inquest and a new inquest has taken place at Avon coroner’s court near Bristol.
On Friday, the coroner who has heard the second inquest, Robert Sowersby, backed the Condons’ belief that the death certificate and conclusion of the first inquest were incomplete.
Sowersby, the assistant coroner for Avon, stated that between 14 and 16 April consultants decided not to give Ben antibiotics. Sowersby said: “I find Ben should have been given antibiotics by 16 April at the latest,” and added that if he had been given antibiotics it would have stopped the pseudomonas infection entering his bloodstream.
The coroner said some medics had a “patronising approach” to Ben’s parents and that Jenny and Allyn were not told what was going on or why and were not involved in important decisions. He said it was “hard” to understand a delay in telling them how sick Ben was.
Sowersby said: “A lot of mistakes were made. The actions of various employees who were involved in Ben’s care or in subsequent investigations understandably aroused suspicion and contributed to the family’s inability to believe anything they were being told.”
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Source: The Guardian, 21 February 2025
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