Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust has paid out compensation to the parents of a four-year-old boy after they failed to remove a breathing tube soon after he was born.

Owen Thomas was just a 10-day-old baby when he was fitted with an endotracheal tube at Stafford Hospital because of breathing problems. However, staff failed to remove the tube and it took a week before he managed to cough it up. His parents, Clare and Kev brought a claim of medical negligence against the NHS trust and were awarded a five-figure sum, though they claim that Owen will only receive about £3,000 in total.

Mrs Thomas said that she had concerns about her son’s health in the first few days of his life but hospital staff assured her there was nothing to worry about. Then, a few days later in the hospital’s specialist care unit, she said that her son had turned blue and was choking when she slapped him on the back and the tube came out.

It is just the latest in a string of negative headlines for Stafford Hospital, which first came to the wider public’s attention two years ago when a Healthcare Commission report said there were 400 more deaths than would be usual at the hospital between 2005 and 2008. An independent inquiry a year later found that patients were routinely neglected at hospitals within the NHS trust.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2064277/Blundering-doctors-left-plastic-feeding-tube-inside-newborn-baby--coughed-10-DAYS-LATER.html