Families accept damages over Nottingham NHS endoscopy deaths

The families of three patients who all died after undergoing the same specialised endoscopy procedure have accepted damages from an NHS trust.

The patients all died after a procedure called an endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust.

The trust said improvements had been made.

William - known as Bill - Doleman, 76, Anita Burkey, 85, Peter Sellars, 72, and Carol Cole, 53, died in the space of about six months after undergoing the procedures.

An inquest found they died as a result of complications of the ERCP - where a tube is passed through a patient's throat to examine and treat possible gallstones and other conditions.

The families said they had accepted undisclosed damages from the trust over the deaths.

Tonette Doleman, 77, a former NHS auxiliary nurse who was with her husband for 31 years, said: "He was always laughing. He could always make a joke of something. I miss him every day.

"It was never about the compensation.

"I can't make sense of it. It's hurtful when you think of all the wrongs that were done. I know that nobody is perfect and people do make mistakes... but, please take more care.

"This is a person you're dealing with and a person's family."

David Burkey, 64, the son of Anita - a grandmother from Long Eaton in Derbyshire who died in April 2020 - said he did not believe the risks had ever been properly spelled out to her prior to the treatment.

"It was really concerning, the lack of communication," he said.

"We always told mum she was in the right place - in the hospital, where they know what they are doing - and we feel guilty that things didn't work out as they should have done.

"She was a lovely lady; she was very family-orientated.

"If she hadn't have had this procedure, she wouldn't have died at that time in that way.

"She would have lived longer. We don't know how much longer but she could still be here now. We don't know. We will never know.

"Now we've got to a sort of resolution, we just hope it doesn't happen again to anybody else."

The family of the fourth patient, Carol Cole, are engaged in ongoing legal actions with the trust.

Phil McGough, a lawyer at Freeths - which represented three of the families - said: "While no amount of money can compensate our clients for what they've been through, our clients' hope and ours is that going forwards, lessons have been learned."

A prevention of future deaths report was issued following the inquest.

John Walsh, deputy medical director at the trust, said: "We would like to offer our sincerest condolences to the families for their loss and we are truly sorry for any shortcomings in the care we provided.

"Although each case is unique, we should have done more to involve families in decisions about patient care as well as taken other actions to manage these complex, high-risk cases.

"We have made significant changes including: appointing more consultants who can deliver lower-risk endoscopy to ensure this procedure is still required, introducing an extra clinic where families can be involved in the discussion of benefits and estimated personalised risk and we are developing advanced real-time data analysis to track outcomes and inform our consent conversations."