Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust (NUH) has paid damages to three families whose relatives died after undergoing the same specialised endoscopy procedure. The BBC reported that the patients died after a procedure called an endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) at the NHS trust.
William Doleman, 76, Anita Burkey, 85, Peter Sellars, 72, and Carol Cole, 53, died in the space of about six months following complications after undergoing the procedure - where a tube is passed through a patient's throat to examine and treat possible gallstones and other conditions. The surgeries were all carried out by the same doctor but the coroner concluded it was the systems in place to properly gain consent and inform patients of the risks of the procedures that were the issue, not the doctor's competence.
NUH had considered all four deaths were unavoidable, Nottingham's Coroners' Court was told in December. But Laurinda Bower, assistant coroner for Nottinghamshire, found this was not the case and she issued a prevention of future deaths report.
