A woman who died in her sleep after a night out with friends was told by doctors that everything was 'fine'.
Tracey McGrann, 54, a mum-of-three from Birkenhead, was out celebrating a friend's birthday at a local pub during a bank holiday weekend in 2024.
The next morning, her 16-year-old daughter found her dead in bed just three months after an ECG test showed some concerns.
Tracey, who suffered from a fear of going to hospitals, was complaining about chest pain and was told to go to A&E at Arrowe Park Hospital after an ECG test flagged an abnormality.
Advert
“My mum was someone who was scared of dying and terrified of hospitals, so for her to pluck up the courage and go was huge,” her daughter Leah McGrann told Medical Negligence Assist.
After another ECG test was carried out, Tracey decided to take a picture of the result on screen, just minutes before doctors discharged her.
Leah, however, has insisted that the photo said ‘moderate T-wave abnormality, consider anterior ischemia’, which means reduced blood supply to the heart's front wall.
Tracey died of ischemic heart disease (IHD), which causes narrowing of the arteries.
“The text message she received from her GP instructing her to go to A&E was sent on the same day. It all matched, and it even flagged up ‘consider ischemia’, which they did not,” she claimed.
“During the meeting, I asked the medical professionals what duty of care did they give to my mum - they replied they didn’t. I asked them why was my mum discharged within minutes of doing that ECG - they had no response.
“If a doctor had signed the ECG off then at least we would’ve known who was to blame.
“If they just looked at the ECG mum would’ve been on some pathway to receiving treatment.
“One of the directors, who was a top medical professional, even stated that if he was on duty that night, my mum would have been admitted and transferred straight to cardiology."
Because of this, Leah believes that the death was preventable.
After raising the issue with the trust that runs Arrowe Park Hospital, Leah said: “They explained that they don’t keep copies of ECG results so there was no paper trail. The only way this was caught was because my mum took a photo of her reading at the time.”
A spokesperson said: “The Trust cares for hundreds of thousands of patients every year across emergency, specialist and community services and the provision of safe care is our top priority.
“When issues are identified or on the rare occasion that things do go wrong, we ensure learning is embedded into our patient safety and learning processes.
“Where appropriate, incidents are investigated in line with national NHS processes and with NHS Resolution, which manages clinical negligence claims on behalf of all NHS organizations.”
Anish Vij