An 11-year-old from Addiscombe died while in the care of Croydon University Hospital in 2020 after a delay in giving her drugs and 10 other issues with her care, according to a report from Croydon Health Services NHS Trust.
Annalise Luffingham was admitted to hospital on February 11, 2020, and died the next day. She had been suffering from a headache and eye pain for a week when her parents took her in to A&E at Mayday.
She had also been experiencing dizziness, vomiting, confusion and a high temperature.
It took almost seven hours after she was admitted before Annie was given antibiotics.
The trust’s report found that if she had been screened correctly for sepsis she would have started receiving intravenous antibiotics within the hour.
Just over an hour after she was given the drugs, Annie suffered a cardiac arrest.
She was resuscitated and transferred to another hospital, where she died the following day.
Let down: Annie Luffingham was just 11 when she died
“There are very good protocols that hospitals should be following,” said her mother, Tracey Shephard. “If they don’t follow those protocols, then this could easily happen to somebody else.”
Shephard said: “Annie was the most wonderful daughter we could have ever wished for.
“Our lives will never be the same without her. It’s devastating that she’ll never grow up and fulfil the potential she had.”
An inquest in 2021 concluded that her death from sepsis caused by meningitis was as a result of natural causes contributed to by neglect.
“When Annie needed help she was badly let down,” said her father, David Luffingham.
The parents have spoken out after they secured an undisclosed settlement from Croydon Health Services NHS Trust.
The trust has admitted liability for Annie’s death and apologised to the couple.
A spokesperson for the trust said that they “implemented a number of changes” after an internal review which included “additional clinical training for staff on the management of sepsis and meningitis”.
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10 years ago when my daughter was 19 she was taken to CUH by ambulance because they thought she had meningitis. When we arrived she was triaged by a nurse and then we were made to wait in the waiting room. I kept asking for her to be seen by a doctor and after 2 or 3 hours she just wanted to go home as she hadn’t been seen. The next day my ex husband who lived in Clapham took her to St. George’s hospital where she had a lumbar puncture and was diagnosed with meningitis! We are so lucky that she was okay. I’m very sorry for the family of Annie!