Hospital failures led to diabetic womans death

Staff at Royal Cornwall Hospital in Truro have come under fire over the death of a diabetes patient.
Claire Harry, 36, was admitted to the hospital, which had treated her for more than 12 years, on 27 September with a chest infection.
But on the night of 29-30 September she fell into the coma after experiencing a drop in blood sugar ( hypoglycaemia ), which also caused irreversible brain damage.
She never regained consciousness and died from bronchial pneumonia on 13 October, an inquest revealed.
Coroner Dr Emma Carlyon heard hospital staff failed to properly monitor Ms Harry’s blood sugar levels. They changed the interval in which the patient’s blood sugar was monitored from every two hours to every six, and as a result failed to spot her dangerously low sugar level.
At the coroner’s court, Dr Carlyon ruled that Ms Harry died because the hypoglycaemia “was not recognised or treated in time to avoid death”.
Lezli Boswell, chief executive of the Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust, apologised to Ms Harry’s family, the hearing was told, and stressed that a number of changes had since been made at the hospital as a result of the death.
The changes include the introduction of an education programme for all nursing staff, the provision of treatment boxes in every ward and department, and extra staff on the Carnkie Ward.