Wyllow-Raine Swinburn: Mum's 999 call went unanswered, inquest told

Wyllow-Raine Swinburn was pronounced dead five minutes after she reached hospital on 30 September

The mum of a collapsed baby spent five minutes on an unanswered 999 call before it was transferred to another part of the country, an inquest heard.

Newborn Wyllow-Raine Swinburn fell ill on 30 September and died five minutes after arriving at Oxford's John Radcliffe Hospital.

Her family had spent 40 minutes giving the three-day-old CPR as they waited for an ambulance to arrive.

The hearing was adjourned for further evidence to be submitted.

Oxford Coroner's Court heard Wyllow-Raine had been born via a caesarean section on 27 September. She weighed 10lbs 5oz and appeared to be healthy.

In evidence read out in court, grandmother Anna Fisher said that three days later the infant was crying and had a fever when she was taken to bed at the family home in Didcot, Oxfordshire.

'No-one's coming'

Her daughter Amelia Pill had phoned her in the early hours of 30 September to say the baby did not appear to be breathing, the hearing was told.

Her statement described how Ms Pill was screaming "no-one's coming, no-one's coming" as she waited for a 999 call to be answered.

The inquest heard an ambulance was supposed to arrive within seven minutes in 90% of cases, according to South Central Ambulance Service, but Wyllow-Raine's family were still on the phone at that point.

Her provisional cause of death was recorded as sudden unexpected death, with the cause of the collapse unexplained.

Karen Sillicorn-Aston, clinical governance lead for the South Central Ambulance Service, said the call was made at 04:38 BST and was disconnected by a BT operator - whose job it was to listen in to all calls before they were answered - five minutes later.

She said rules stated the BT operator should have passed the call to another service - in this case the East of England Ambulance Service - and the family remained on the line for two further minutes before the call was answered.

By the time an ambulance arrived, the baby's body temperature had fallen to 30.8C, the hearing was told.

Pathologist Dr Darren Fowler told the hearing the baby's cause of death was "more likely than not" to have been natural.

However, he said he was not the most qualified person to answer questions about whether she would have survived if an ambulance had arrived sooner.

Coroner Darren Salter adjourned the hearing for further evidence to be submitted.