A coroner has criticised a hospital trust for the treatment they gave to a young mum who died of multi-organ failure after she had two operations cancelled because she had head lice.
Leicester assistant coroner Lydia Brown spoke out after an inquest heard that Lindsay Swanson was diagnosed with acute pancreatitis at Leicester General Hospital but died eight months later after never having had surgery to remove gall stones that had caused the onset of the life-threatening condition.
Ms Brown heard how Lindsay, 34, was admitted to the hospital, which is run by the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust, with severe abdominal pains on October 26 2012.
Ms Swanson, of New Parks, was discharged days later and told she would have keyhole surgery to remove the gall stones about six weeks later.
The three-day hearing was told that Ms Swanson was not seen for pre-operative assessment until about 12 weeks later on February 20 2013.
Ms Swanson, who had lost a third of her body weight by then, was sent home without any observations being taken and told that the surgery was cancelled because she had head lice.
The mum-of-three was seen again in March and the operation was once again cancelled.
Ms Brown said: "I find that sending home a patient who should have had her operation many weeks earlier, without observations being taken and without senior review, to be unacceptable.
"The hospital seemed to me to be distracted by the head lice and not why this lady may not be able to deal with this issue herself.
"The hospital deprived itself of the opportunity to follow up this patient.
"I am dismayed that for reasons not established the waiting list system did not work, opportunities to treat both in February and March were missed and there was no follow up to ensure that Lindsay made a good recovery."
She said chances to improve Ms Swanson's prospects were missed.
The inquest was told how Ms Swanson was admitted to Leicester Royal Infirmary by ambulance on April 1.
She was transferred to Leicester General Hospital on May 3. She died on the high dependency unit on June 6.
Ms Brown, who recorded a narrative verdict, said that Ms Swanson died of multi-organ failure caused by acute pancreatitis.
Matthew Metcalf, a consultant gall bladder surgeon at Leicester General, said that Ms Swanson was one of the 20 percent of people in a high risk category who suffer pancreatitis.
He said: "Half of those 20 percent die and she was one of those.
"I don't think there was anything that could have been done that would have affected the outcome."
John Jameson, clinical director for general surgery at Leicester's Hospitals, said he would like to express his heartfelt condolences towards the family for their sad loss.
He said: "Unfortunately Lindsay had progressive inflammation of her pancreas which was the ultimate cause of her death.
"We recognise that there were some elements of Lindsay's treatment that could have been done differently and we have made changes to some of our processes to address these issues."
Lindsay Swanson's family are suing the hospital trust over the treatment she received.
Her long-term partner Lee Dunning said he believes the delaying of the operations led to her death.
The 30-year-old store detective said: "I feel that Lindsay was let down by the hospital and that she could have received better care. There were too many delays.
"It was terrible news to find out that Lindsay was ill and needed an operation, but we thought that once she was on the waiting list everything would be OK.
"But it wasn't. Everything then went from bad to worse.
"It was awful to hear that Lindsay couldn't have the operation, as she still didn't feel right and was in more and more pain.
"It was also becoming obvious that she was unwell from her appearance, as she was losing a lot of weight."
Nelson solicitors represented the family during the inquest and are pursuing the civil claim for compensation against the hospital trust.
Matthew Olner, expert clinical negligence solicitor at the Leicester firm, said: "We have started a civil claim on behalf of Mr Dunning against the University Hospital of Leicester NHS Trust.
"Lindsay was supposed to receive a very simple and routine operation within six weeks of being discharged in October but due to what appears to have been an administrative error on the part of the Trust she instead was listed routinely for 18 weeks from discharge.
"This is a truly tragic case, in which opportunities were lost to treat this young woman's condition in a timely way."
Steve Murray, head of legal services for Leicester's Hospitals, said: "In this case, as with any other, action will be placed in the hands of our lawyers and we hope that matters can be resolved between them as quickly as possible."
