A fresh investigation into the case of a five-year-old boy who died a week after he was sent home from a hospital emergency department has been welcomed by his family who said: “All we want is the truth.”
Yusuf Mahmud Nazir died on November 23 2022, eight days after he was seen at Rotherham Hospital and sent home with antibiotics.
A report into Yusuf’s case, by independent consultants and published last year by NHS South Yorkshire, found that his care was appropriate and “an admission was not clinically required”, but this was rejected by his family.
Yusuf’s uncle, Zaheer Ahmed, said the green-light was given on Wednesday for a new independent investigation – led by former general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing Peter Carter – to begin its work.
Mr Ahmed said the news that the investigation’s terms-of-reference had been agreed and it is officially starting work comes almost exactly two years after Yusuf died.
He said it follows the direct intervention of Health Secretary Wes Streeting and his Tory predecessor, Victoria Atkins, who met with the family earlier this year and asked NHS England chief executive Amanda Pritchard to look into the case.
Mr Ahmed said on Wednesday: “We’ve had big fight for it. It’s two years ago when Yusuf passed away.
“Since his death, for two years we’ve been non-stop fighting. For us, it’s a daily thing.”
He said: “Thanks to the government and the support we’ve had from everybody, we’ve managed to get what we’ve been wanting.”
Mr Ahmed said: “All we want is the truth. We’re not asking them to put what we say into the report, we just want the truth.”
The family has always said they were told “there are no beds and not enough doctors” in the emergency department, and that Yusuf should have been admitted and given intravenous antibiotics in Rotherham.
Mr Ahmed said: “I was holding him until his last breath.
“We know what happened. When you know something’s happened and you read something different, that’s more upsetting for us because we know exactly what happened.
“We know how he suffered. We know where the failings were. We know they weren’t listening to us, they weren’t taking anything into consideration.”
He said: “They didn’t have enough staff, they were short on beds, they didn’t have no doctors, they had no facilities. At the time, they didn’t have anything.”
Mr Ahmed said: “We want to thank Wes Streeting for all his support.
“As the shadow health minister he was supporting a second investigation and he’s still continuing to support a second investigation, and a thorough investigation, in his new role as the Health Secretary.”
He said: “There’s a lot of high-end people involved and we think it is going to get done absolutely properly, it’s going to be thorough investigated.”
Mr Ahmed said he was pleased with the appointment of Dr Carter, saying he has already met with the family and appeared “very committed”.
He said they are hoping the investigation will be completed by March next year.
Mr Ahmed said the report published in October 2023 missed out a range of evidence, and the final version had 13 pages redacted from the version he was first given.
That report concluded: “We consider that on the basis of Yusuf’s observations, presentation and diagnosis there was a reasonable expectation that the antibiotics prescribed were appropriate and an admission was not clinically required.”
It also concluded that “a bed would have been found” if an admission had been deemed necessary.
The report set out how Yusuf, who had asthma, was taken to the GP with a sore throat and feeling unwell on November 15. He was prescribed antibiotics by an advanced nurse practitioner.
Later that evening his family took him to Rotherham Hospital Urgent & Emergency Care Centre (UECC) where he was seen in the early hours of the morning after a six-hour wait.
Yusuf was discharged with a diagnosis of severe tonsillitis and an extended prescription of antibiotics, the report said.
Two days later Yusuf was given further antibiotics by his GP for a possible chest infection, but his family became so concerned they called an ambulance and insisted the paramedics take him to Sheffield Children’s Hospital rather than Rotherham.
Yusuf was admitted to the intensive care unit on November 21 but developed multi-organ failure and suffered several cardiac arrests which he did not survive.
The report said there was only one doctor in the paediatric UECC on November 15 and, after midnight, that medic was responsible for covering adults and children.
But it added that the doctor who saw Yusuf is an experienced UECC doctor who would not have needed to refer to a paediatrician to admit him.
The Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust said on Wednesday: “Our thoughts and condolences remain with Yusuf’s family.
“We fully co-operated with the original independent inquiry, and we will continue to cooperate fully with any further investigations.”
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: “Our heartfelt sympathies go out to Yusuf Nazir’s family and friends.
“NHS England has commissioned an independent investigation into this tragic case. This is a review that the Secretary of State welcomes and has long called for, and he will be meeting with Yusuf’s family.”
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