Ben Condon: Hospital criticised over response after baby death

Mr Condon said the hospital went to great lengths to cover up its mistake

A report says the avoidable death of a baby boy in Bristol shows how mistakes are often made worse by "defensive" and "insensitive" responses from hospitals.

Ben Condon was eight weeks old when he died at Bristol Children's Hospital due to a respiratory infection.

His case featured in a Health Ombudsman report which said the NHS has "ingrained defensiveness" when it comes to patients suffering avoidable death.

Father Ally Condon said the hospital took "endless" measures to cover it up.

Born at 29 weeks, Ben weighed just under 3lb at birth and spent six weeks in the neonatal intensive care unit at Southmead Hospital in Bristol.

• Hospital apologises for 'failings'

Three days after being taken home, Ben developed a small cough. When his condition worsened, he was transferred to Bristol Children's Hospital where doctors diagnosed Human Metapneumovirus (hMPV).

Ben Condon's died in April 2015

While most children with the virus make a full recovery, Ben's condition worsened. He died following a cardiac arrest on 17 April.

It was later revealed antibiotics were not delivered to Ben fast enough, and his death was avoidable.

Mr Condon, from Weston-super-Mare, said he blames the trust for not acting quick enough and failing to give details on what happened to Ben for seven weeks.

He told the BBC: "They withheld test results, they told us tests, which were never taken, were were negative, they removed documents from the medical notes - it's endless," he said.

"It is hard to decipher what the truth is."

The CQC said it failed to uphold it's policy of "candour"

In 2017, Bristol NHS Hospital's Trust and the CQC apologised to Mr Condon after a reappraisal of the case.

A letter from the Care Quality Commission said the trust had "missed an opportunity" to provide Ben with "timely antibiotics" and that the failure contributed to his death.

"The trust did not properly equip and empower its staff to acknowledge when things had gone wrong and to meet its duty of candour," it said.

"The trust should have acted to provide open and transparent, clear and complete information to Mr and Mrs Condon about this.

"I want to apologise that the trust were not held to account by us."

A second inquest into the incident is due to go ahead later this year.

'Has to be challenged'

In his report, Rob Behrens, health service ombudsman for England, pointed to the "gaping hole" between policies aimed at improving patient safety and real-life experience on the ground, with hospitals "routinely" failing to accept their errors.

"Patients have been lied to...there are a whole series of incidents where people do not know what went on and hospitals are reluctant to disclose this," he said."You can call it what you like but it is a cover-up.""I'm having conversations with NHS England where they say 'we don't recognise the term avoidable harm, avoidable death, it's not helpful'.

"Well excuse me, I think that is a nonsense and it has to be challenged."