Yusuf Nazir: New report examines death of boy who was sent home from hospital due to a 'lack of beds'

The mother of a five-year-old boy who died after being sent home from hospital because of a "lack of beds" has told Sky News that the second report into his death "has not brought closure for the family". 

Yusuf Nazir died in November 2022. His mother Soniya had rushed her son to Rotherham Hospital's A&E, only to be told "there were no beds available".

Yusuf was eventually seen by a doctor but then sent home. Soniya says the doctor told her that "Yusuf had the worst case of tonsillitis he had ever seen".

But the child's health continued to deteriorate, and his desperately worried mother called an ambulance to rush him to the nearby specialist children's hospital in Sheffield.

It was here, the report says, that a number of critical interventions were missed. Yusuf's family say that, if doctors had acted sooner, he would still be alive.

Speaking in her first interview since Yusuf's death, Soniya described the panic she felt as a mother watching her son "dying in front of her eyes".

"I carried Yusuf to the nurse, floppy with his eyes rolled back, struggling to breathe, myself to the nurse," Soniya said.

"She said: 'We're too busy, we can't get a doctor, you'll have to wait.'"

This second independent report was backed by Wes Streeting when he was shadow health secretary.

A previous internal NHS report found no wrongdoing on the part of Rotherham Hospital. The family have described that report as a "whitewash".

Their claim will be supported by this second report, which says: "It's clear that across all settings - primary care, pre-hospital, emergency and inpatient - the healthcare system failed to truly hear the family's voice."

It also says staff should have listened to the "mother's instinct".

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Source: Sky News, 31 July 2025