31st January 2018
Belfast Trust, Southern Trust, and Western Trust welcome the publication of The Report of The Inquiry into Hyponatreamia-related deaths.
On behalf of Belfast, Southern and Western Trusts : “We unreservedly apologise to the families of Adam Strain, Claire Roberts, Lucy Crawford, Raychel Ferguson and Conor Mitchell for our many failings.
We welcome today’s publication of the Report and will urgently review the recommendations to ensure that all possible steps have been taken to prevent this ever happening again.
We made mistakes, we were not as open and transparent as we could and should have been, and opportunities to learn from each other to make our care safer were missed – for this we are truly sorry.
Surely, there can be no greater pain for a parent than to lose their child and then to learn that errors occurred which were avoidable.
Since these tragic deaths occurred, significant lessons have been learned in how we safely manage fluids in children and many improvements have been put in place.
Although much has been achieved to promote an open and transparent culture, we know that much more still needs to be done.
We are wholly committed to achieving this and welcome the recommendation of a duty of candour.
We as Medical Directors on behalf of our Trusts pledge to drive forward the lessons learned as a result of this Inquiry.
The full report is available on the Inquiry into Hyponatraemia-related Deaths website.