“This was obviously a very busy time at the hospital”
Dated 28 Jan 2020, from the coroner for Northamptonshire. Sent to 1 organisation or person.
A coroner wrote this report after an inquest, to warn the organisations below about a risk of further deaths.
The 56-day response deadline
All responses publishedReplies were due by 24 Mar 2020.
Organisations that receive a report must reply to the coroner within 56 days, saying what they will do or why they will do nothing. We show whether a response is published on judiciary.uk; a reply may have been sent and not yet published.
- Report dated28 Jan 2020
- Deadline24 Mar 2020
- Published on judiciary.uk20 Mar 2020
- Today23 Oct 2026
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Responses from each recipient
| Sent to | Response |
|---|---|
| Kettering General Hospital NHS Foundation Trust | Response publishedPublished on judiciary.uk in March 2020. |
The coroner’s concerns
– This was obviously a very busy time at the hospital. However, Ms Sterland was in the hospital for some 40 hours, she was not getting better, there were signs that she was deteriorating during the late morning and afternoon of 30 December, there was a plan to admit her to a ward but there were no beds available. My concern is that in this situation she was not seen by a senior doctor. If Ms Sterland had been seen by a senior doctor the evidence was that she would have had further investigation which would have led to earlier diagnosis of the obstruction and may have altered the outcome. 1 The evidence at the inquest suggested that there are some categories of patients in the emergency department for whom a senior review is mandatory. It may be that the Trust would wish to consider whether the circumstances of this case suggest that there are other situations in which a senior review should be required.
An extract. Read the full report, including the circumstances of the death, on the Courts and Tribunals Judiciary website.
- Source
- judiciary.uk, Prevention of Future Deaths reports, 2020-0062
- Added to Minute Book
- 8 Oct 2026
- Reuse
- We show short extracts and link to the original. We don’t host the full report.
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Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: Courts and Tribunals Judiciary, judiciary.uk. Open Government Licence v3.0
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