Death investigated at troubled children's ward

Chloe Longster was admitted to Kettering General Hospital with a cold and pain in her lower chest

The care regulator is investigating the death of a 13-year-old girl who was being treated on a hospital children’s ward which is the subject of safety concerns.

Chloe Longster, who had no serious underlying health conditions, was admitted to the Skylark ward at Kettering General Hospital, Northamptonshire, on 28 November 2022 with chest pain and flu-like symptoms. She died the next day after clinicians reportedly failed to treat the signs of sepsis.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) was not informed of the incident for at least three weeks despite visiting the hospital one week later.

A spokesperson for the University Hospitals of Northamptonshire said that Chloe's death could have been reported more quickly.

Chloe was a student at the Robert Smyth Academy in Market Harborough, Leicestershire

Sepsis is a life-threatening condition which occurs when a body’s immune system overreacts to an infection.

A spokesperson for the CQC said it was “liaising with the trust to establish the circumstances around the death and to see if there is any regulatory action that needs to be taken”.

In some cases where people are harmed or put in danger, the regulator can choose to prosecute organisations or individuals.

The spokesperson confirmed Kettering General Hospital did not inform the CQC of Chloe’s death until after an unannounced inspection of the Skylark ward and the paediatric emergency department on 6 and 19 December 2022.

Inspectors later issued a warning notice over patient safety and cited concerns around sepsis treatment, staff numbers, dirt levels and not having a culture where problems could be raised without fear.

Julie Hogg, the chief nurse at the University Hospitals of Northamptonshire NHS Group, said: “We offer our condolences to Chloe’s family for their tragic loss. We are sorry for any failings in the care we provided and we await the coroner’s conclusion.

“We started our investigation processes in the hours after Chloe’s death, culminating in our national reporting in December 2022. We acknowledge this could have been done more quickly.”

Fifty families have reported serious concerns to the BBC about the care of their children at Kettering General Hospital

A review of children’s services at Kettering General Hospital by the East Midlands Clinical Senate - commissioned in the same month Chloe was admitted to the Skylark ward - found “training around quality improvement and learning from incidents in general appeared to be lacking”.

The external team of clinicians said the trust made “constant references within the evidence of action plans and risk registers”, but “these frequently appear to have either not been followed through or completed”.

The review added “there was very limited evidence shared on patient outcomes and examples of audit that would be expected”.

More than 50 families have reported serious concerns to the BBC about the care of their children at Kettering General Hospital, including the mother of one-year-old Jorgie Stanton-Watts, whose death from sepsis in 2016 prompted a major police inquiry.

In May 2024, the CQC upgraded children’s and young people’s services at Kettering General Hospital from inadequate to requires improvement.

Chloe's inquest will begin on Monday and is expected to last one week.