St James Hospital: Elderly woman died after unsupervised fall in Leeds hospital despite known risk

Retired accounts clerk Heather Bradshaw was living at the Seacroft Green Care Home when she suffered an initial fall on March 28.

The 88-year-old was then taken to Leeds General Infirmary, before being transferred to St James’ Hospital. But two days after her accident, she fell again while on the ward and was knocked unconscious, suffering a head injury.

Mrs Bradshaw died on April 4 in hospital.

An inquest into her death was held at Wakefield Coroner’s Court on Thursday (September 26). The court heard that she had been unsupervised at the time of her second fall.

Her son, David Bradshaw, said in a statement to the court that Mrs Bradshaw had been in good health until around 12 months before her death, when she became increasingly frail.

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He said that when she was taken to St James’ Hospital, she was moved from a bed to a chair on March 30, before she fell onto the floor.

Mr Bradshaw added that she was unsupervised at the time of the fall despite being “deemed at high risk of falls”, and that he believed “this lack of appropriate supervision led to her falling and suffering the head injury”.

He said in his statement that he has since received an apology from St James’ Hospital.

During the inquest, Amanda DeWitt, a senior sister at the hospital, also gave evidence. She said that at the time of Mrs Bradshaw's fall, the ward was “particularly busy” and the team were dealing with an unexpected death on the same afternoon.

She told the court that a risk assessment was not taken when Mrs Bradshaw’s position was changed to her being sat in the chair.

Nicola Little, a matron in the elderly admissions ward, told the court that since the incident, she has “observed significant improvement in falls prevention and, as a result, a reduction in number of falls”.

Coroner Oliver Longstaff said: “There was a known falls risk due to Mrs Bradshaw’s history of falls and pre-existing frailty.

“An assessment of her move to the chair was not performed. Her death happened due to an accident.

“After this very sad event occurred, some learning has been taken from it to reduce the risk of it happening in the future, and steps have been taken to disseminate that learning.

“Were this not the case, I would be in a position to make a report to the trust to prevent future deaths.”