Manchester hospital listeria outbreak linked to meat firm - inquest

Enid Heap was served pre-packed sandwiches, the inquest heard

The source of a listeria outbreak involved in the death of two women was traced to a food processing firm supplying meat for sandwiches for NHS patients, an inquest has heard.

Patients Beverley Sowah, 57, and Enid Heap, 84, were given chicken mayonnaise sandwiches on successive days at Manchester Royal Infirmary in 2019.

An inquest heard the "primary hypothesis" was they caught listeria.

The women had underlying health issues, Manchester City Coroner's Court heard.

Listeria can cause an illness called listeriosis, which can be fatal for people with weakened immune systems.

Mrs Sowah, a retired nurse, died on 26 April 2019, two weeks after she was admitted to Manchester Royal Infirmary.

Mrs Heap, a mother-of-five, was admitted to the hospital on 25 March 2019 and died two weeks later on 6 May.

Manchester City Coroner's Court heard both deaths were linked to listeria reported to have come from chicken mayonnaise sandwiches given to the patients.

Beverley Sowah was found to have listeria in her blood.

The head of incident management from the Food Standards Agency (FSA) told the inquest the outbreak was escalated to a high-priority incident.

She said the meat supplier, North Country Quality Food, which supplied the chicken for sandwich firm the Good Food Chain in Stone, Staffordshire, was found to be the earliest point in the supply chain where listeria matching the outbreak strain was detected.

Tina Potter told the inquest tests were carried out to identify the link between the deaths of both Mrs Heap and Mrs Sowah.

Ms Potter said investigations immediately linked the two deaths because they were at the same hospital and both patients had eaten the same sandwiches.

They worked backwards to trace the sandwich supplier and which firm had supplied the meat.

Zak Golombeck, Manchester city coroner, said: "You were able to conclude that the source of the listeria contamination was the cooked chicken?"

Ms Potter said: "That's correct. We drew that conclusion because that was the product that patients had consumed."

She said North Country Quality Foods was found to be "the earliest source of the outbreak".

The court heard that it is "extremely difficult" to get rid of listeria "if it takes a foothold in a business".

Ms Potter added that it was not possible to determine at what point the outbreak strain became unsafe.

The women were both served chicken sandwiches at Manchester Royal Infirmary, the inquest heard

Tests of later products from North Country Quality Foods at the end of May supplied to the Good Food Chair found "unprecedented" listeria levels that were "10 times higher" than the legal safe limit.

The court heard the FSA had contacted all local authorities to inform them of the outbreak and advised them to contact businesses to identify products from North Country Quality Foods.

One business tested bacon that they had bought from North Country Quality Foods and found it to contain the outbreak strain of the listeria.

The meat supplier and the sandwich maker have since gone into liquidation.

The inquest continues.