Brighton Hospital
putting people at risk
Earlier this year the Health and Safety
Executive prosecuted the Trust under the
provisions of the Health and Safety at Work
Act 1974 for failing to ensure that “patients
and visitors to the hospital, including Mrs
Joan Rayment, were not thereby exposed
to risks to their health and safety, namely
the risks of injury or death should they
become infected by legionella bacteria
from the various water systems at that
hospital”. It was alleged that the Trust had
failed to take reasonably practicable steps
to control the risk of infection between
March 2007 and November 2013.
Simon Antrobus, the barrister representing
the Trust, entered a guilty plea on its
behalf at Hove Crown Court earlier this
week. The Trust is due to be sentenced on
18 May 2015 and may well face a fine of
hundreds of thousands of pounds.
Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust, which is
responsible for the management of the Royal Sussex County
Hospital in Brighton, has admitted to putting patients and
visitors at risk of catching a potentially fatal bug.
In August 2011 78 year old Jean Rayment
was admitted to the hospital, the busiest
in the county, suffering from a form of
blood cancer that left her susceptible
to infection. Whilst on the Howard ward
in the Jubilee building, she contracted
legionella pneumonia and died a few
months later. An inquest into her death
found that, although she had died of
natural causes, her death was accelerated
by her having contracted legionella.
Legionella is a waterborne bacterium
which causes Legionnaire’s disease,
a potentially fatal form of pneumonia.
Symptoms include high fever, muscle
pain, cough, chest pain and breathing
difficulties. It is believed that Ms Rayment
caught the infection from contaminated
water in one of the hospital’s showers.
The Jubilee building at the hospital is
almost 200 years old and is due to be
demolished as part of a £480 million
redevelopment.
Following Ms Rayment’s death a
Sussex police investigation found that
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legionella was an “endemic problem”
at the hospital. High levels of legionella
were found in the hospitals’ Lawson
Unit, Barry building, Jubilee building,
Tower Block, Sussex Eye Hospital and
Outpatients. Water in the Jubilee building
got “nowhere near” the 60 degree
Celsius temperature needed to kill of the
bacteria. The investigation revealed that
some staff at the hospital had known of
the problem for several months but did
not inform clinical teams.
Ms Rayment caught
the infection from
contaminated water
in one of the hospitals
showers
Following the court hearing the Trust’s
chief executive, Matthew Kershaw,
apologised to Ms Rayment’s family.
He said “In 2011 unacceptably high
levels of legionella bacteria were found
in water samples taken from one of
the oldest parts of the Royal Sussex
County Hospital and failings in our water
management systems and processes
resulted in in adequate corrective actions
being undertaken as quickly as they
should have been.”
Ms Rayment, a retired teacher, was
director of Nippers playgroup and a
church warden who devoted a great
deal of time to the St Nicholas Church.
Father Robert Charner paid tribute to
Ms Rayment whom he described as
a “creative, imaginative and, in some
ways, unconventional person. She will
be remembered most as a woman of the
heart, for her loving was generous, wide,
sincere, beckoning, necessary.”
The specialist clinical negligence team at
Mayo Wynne Baxter has acted for other
patients affected by serious infections
acquired at the Royal Sussex County
Hospital. If you, or a family member, have
contracted an infection whilst in hospital,
please contact us to arrange a free
consultation.
By Gail Waller