In May 2024, a few months after having treatment for a brain tumour, Oli Coppock went to Warrington Hospital’s emergency department with bad headaches and dizziness.
He underwent tests and assessments, but did not have a brain scan, before going home. It was a decision that ultimately ruined his life at the age of 32, his family says. A week later, with fluid building up on the brain, he suffered a cardiac arrest. He did not recover and now lives in almost complete paralysis.
Oli’s case is just one of a growing number of clinical negligence claims being made in England relating to A&E care. An analysis by the BBC shows there has been a 41% rise in cases over the past five years, with doctors linking it to the long delays and pressures being seen in emergency departments.
Oli’s father, Stephen, says he knows A&E staff are under pressure, but he cannot understand how a brain scan was not ordered, given his son’s medical history.
Despite the brain tumour and a recent diagnosis of multiple sclerosis, Oli was otherwise fit and well and positive about his future. He had a career in digital marketing, loved going to the gym and did some DJing in his spare time.
Stephen says the whole family – including Oli’s six siblings – has been left “angry and broken” by what happened to him.
Sounds about right unfortunately.
Yes A&E is under pressure; as are all services, but A&E has increasingly become a simple triage service which aims to get the patient out of A&E as quickly as possible and by any means possible. This often leads to doctors not actually doing any of the basics because the aim isn’t diagnostics and treatment, but rather to either refer the patient directly to a specialty, or to get them out of A&E to meet breaching targets.
Not to mention the pressures of the system leads to lots of doctors being locally promoted to senior positions which in my opinion they do not have the clinical knowledge or capacity to justify.
In the trust that I work, if I were to collapse outside of the A&E, I’d rather an ambulance take me hours away to a different A&E than that one.
So I don’t know about this case in particular but I also have a brain tumor. Tiny but it’s spread from other areas in my body.
I know if I goto A&E with an illness, unless it’s obviously nothing to do with my tumours they basically won’t do shit.
Not that they’re bad but I have an oncologist assigned to me for a reason, A&E will buy time until the next day when the oncologist is in and then they will take over. They do not have a specialist in cancerous tumors within the A&E department.
The other thing I know is if I get sick and I think I need the hospital I don’t call 999 there’s a 24/7 triage number I call instead that puts me through to a cancer specialist nurse who will triage me. If I need hospital they contact A&E and tell them I’m on the way and what to do from there.
Last time I went with a lung issue I had to sit around until 9am then boom straight to radiology for a CT Scan, saw my doctor with the results 5 minutes later.
If I had a major medical emergency with time-sensitive life-ruining consequences, I would not be confident I’d be able to get adequate medical care from the NHS no matter how well I could advocate for myself, and I’ve always had this fear.
If I had cancer symptoms I’m not sure I’d get adequate investigation on account of being “too young” and unfortunately some cancers are only very vague with symptoms.
Trying to get assessed for autism/ADHD, you can’t be on the waiting lists for both so good luck with your multi year wait on the autism list before you might get to the multi year wait on the ADHD list before you might actually get some kind of treatment or support to actually try and live some sort of life.
Even trying to get counselling on the NHS seems like something I have to jump through hoops for while the assessing staff try to fob me off. I’ve got major physical health issues now from years of SSRI use. Coming off was absolute hell.
I’m an NHS worker myself and genuinely, the system is failing everyone, patients and healthcare staff alike. When you cut funding to core services and overstretch an already compromised workforce, tragedies like this will follow.
I had to attend A+E last year with pain so bad I thought i was going to pass out. I got to A+E around 3am, wasn’t seen until around 9am, got given some paracetamol and got turfed back to the waiting room. Finally got a scan around 4pm, a diagnosis of kidney stones by around 7pm, got some painkillers and sat on a trolley all night until finally seeing a doctor at around midday the following day. To their credit I had surgery by teatime that same day.
All the time I was there I just didn’t have the heart or energy to complain. I could see every member of staff stressed and ran off their feet.
That’s so sad. Wythenshawe hospital has always been brilliant for me, it was my local hospital where I grew up. When I was a student I had severe cellulitis that required hospital admission in London. I was discharged on oral antibiotics and the infection recurred. I went to MRI and they just fobbed me off, saying the infection is a rash that was a reaction to the antibiotics, so i went to wythenshawe and had 10 more days of IV antibiotics as an outpatient.
My wife had a brain haemorrhage some years back, but we didn’t realise it at the time, just thought it was a migraine.
Hospital receptionist tried throwing us out or refusing to book us in. Got past obstacle No. 1 and then waited for ages before being seen by a harassed medic at the wrong end of a long shift.
He spoke to my wife for ages who by now just wanted to leave and insisted that if she wanted to leave, he couldn’t stop her but she’d only leave with his agreement if she agreed to a brain scan.
The scan found the bleed and my wife was treated, over a number of years, and is safe / well.
The PS to the story is that a year or two later I was back at the same A&E with my dad and we got the same doctor.
Not only was he utterly brilliant with my dad, but I got the chance to thank him for saving my wife’s life.
I am so so sorry for Oli / OP’s story, but this is not the product of a stretched or underfunded NHS. This was a mistake that shouldn’t have happened.
The A&E we went to was in a large city, was busy, but they did it the right way and I will always be grateful for that.
Oh, and for the other poster that blamed things like this on foreign / imported doctors, the doctor that saved my wife’s life was Palestinian: so no, am not with you on that point.
A couple of years ago a former colleague of mine collapsed in town. He was rushed to hospital; told he had a seizure and sent home to wait a follow up with a specialist. In the meantime, he was told he couldn’t drive – which is a problem for a man who was a rep who spends his entire working life driving.
But hey, it’s on medical advice. Work were good too and gave him a home based job for the 4 months it took for his specialist appointment.
He walked in and before he even sat down the consultant said ‘It’s pretty clear what happened and it’s nothing to do with neurology’ and referred him to cardiology.
Fundamentally, sorry to say, but no one’s paying enough in tax to justify most major medical issues they’ll experience in their life (combined with other things their tax covers). Healthcare is expensive (always will be and we have it cheaper than most countries- nurses and doctors paid less compared to equivalent nations). With generations living longer with persistent medical support (who also didn’t pay enough tax to cover the age they live to) so we’ve got ourselves a huge funding issue with no easy answer
Walton hospital use and train their junior neurologists at hospitals and A&E department’s across the North west of England and Wales they have contracts with Walton hospital. the juniors have sway over the in house neurologists it will definitely be one of them that made the decision.
Nurses over-promoted to take the place of doctors, junior doctors underpaid and clockwatching rather than curious, consultants underpaid and beleaguered and defensive, everyone worried about being sued so unwilling to take any calculated risk, public ever more entitled and unable/unwilling to tolerate even minor inconvenience since Covid, most Trusts about to go bankrupt…. I think you’d call it a perfect storm.
We need an honest conversation about the NHS that starts with absolute needs (care for those who are actually ill) and ends with how we pay for wants (convenience), cause at the moment we are doing nothing well.
[I saw this court case only a few days ago, published very recently](https://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWHC/KB/2026/2294.html). An 8-year-old with asthma went to A&E with low oxygen in his blood, shortness of breath, very fast pulse and quick breathing. They could have just treated him in hospital with steroids, but they sent him home before they should have. He suffered brain damage from the lack of oxygen after going into cardiac arrest. He’s now 17 and minimally conscious, suffering from daily seizures.
It will cost the NHS Trust the best part of a million pounds a year in compensation, mostly just to cover his care.
Part of the reason that A&E departments are under such massive pressure can be traced to poor local GP provision. Our local surgery closed recently, meaning all of the patients from our (very large) suburb are being funnelled into another branch of the same practice a few miles away. Trying to get an appointment is near impossible, so what do folks do? They call 111 who, once they’ve exhausted their script, always fall back to “…if you’re still concerned, go to A&E”. We’ll, of course I’m still going to be concerned if I can’t see my doctor, and 111 have offered no meaningful help, so off to A&E I trot to clog up their waiting room which adds to the problem. The whole system is broken.
Too many general practitioners (village doctor surgeries) just send you straight to a&e if they can’t do anything. They won’t refer you for minor ailments, they just say go straight to a&e because they’ll sort you out because I can’t do anything. I had a small recurring boil that needed to be removed which wasn’t an emergency or accident but I still ended up clogging up a space at a&e. My family/friends have had the same problem. Minor issues that aren’t emergencies, get told to just head to a&e to get sorted.
Obviously this case is horrendous but I just have to point out the poor wording of the article. “he suffered with a cardiac arrest. He did not recover and now lives in complete paralysis”
If he did not recover from a cardiac arrest he would be dead not paralysed!
Import millions
Have to hire hundreds of thousands with sub par qualification into the nhs
Shock result
Poor chap feel sorry for his family 😞
This is why I will never work for the NHS again. No one takes accountability.
RIP 😞
Get rid of GPs. Them not wanting to see people pushes them to A+E.
More funding to A+E to replace them, turn it into a full on triage. Can refer to the healthcare centres (which now would used to be gps surgery’s) for non emergency long term care, book them into hospital for acutes.
When I have been to ane, the last time my bloods wernt taken, I came in unable to move from pain the only tests I got was a urine sample. When I have had blood tests in the past needles are reused (luckily nothing happened), I am significantly learning over time that there seems to be huge amounts of negligence in ane systems. I typically go to ane a few times a year due to chronic illnesses, at least I get told off pretty bad by the gp if I don’t go when new symptoms occur
19 comments
In May 2024, a few months after having treatment for a brain tumour, Oli Coppock went to Warrington Hospital’s emergency department with bad headaches and dizziness.
He underwent tests and assessments, but did not have a brain scan, before going home. It was a decision that ultimately ruined his life at the age of 32, his family says. A week later, with fluid building up on the brain, he suffered a cardiac arrest. He did not recover and now lives in almost complete paralysis.
Oli’s case is just one of a growing number of clinical negligence claims being made in England relating to A&E care. An analysis by the BBC shows there has been a 41% rise in cases over the past five years, with doctors linking it to the long delays and pressures being seen in emergency departments.
Oli’s father, Stephen, says he knows A&E staff are under pressure, but he cannot understand how a brain scan was not ordered, given his son’s medical history.
Despite the brain tumour and a recent diagnosis of multiple sclerosis, Oli was otherwise fit and well and positive about his future. He had a career in digital marketing, loved going to the gym and did some DJing in his spare time.
Stephen says the whole family – including Oli’s six siblings – has been left “angry and broken” by what happened to him.
Sounds about right unfortunately.
Yes A&E is under pressure; as are all services, but A&E has increasingly become a simple triage service which aims to get the patient out of A&E as quickly as possible and by any means possible. This often leads to doctors not actually doing any of the basics because the aim isn’t diagnostics and treatment, but rather to either refer the patient directly to a specialty, or to get them out of A&E to meet breaching targets.
Not to mention the pressures of the system leads to lots of doctors being locally promoted to senior positions which in my opinion they do not have the clinical knowledge or capacity to justify.
In the trust that I work, if I were to collapse outside of the A&E, I’d rather an ambulance take me hours away to a different A&E than that one.
So I don’t know about this case in particular but I also have a brain tumor. Tiny but it’s spread from other areas in my body.
I know if I goto A&E with an illness, unless it’s obviously nothing to do with my tumours they basically won’t do shit.
Not that they’re bad but I have an oncologist assigned to me for a reason, A&E will buy time until the next day when the oncologist is in and then they will take over. They do not have a specialist in cancerous tumors within the A&E department.
The other thing I know is if I get sick and I think I need the hospital I don’t call 999 there’s a 24/7 triage number I call instead that puts me through to a cancer specialist nurse who will triage me. If I need hospital they contact A&E and tell them I’m on the way and what to do from there.
Last time I went with a lung issue I had to sit around until 9am then boom straight to radiology for a CT Scan, saw my doctor with the results 5 minutes later.
If I had a major medical emergency with time-sensitive life-ruining consequences, I would not be confident I’d be able to get adequate medical care from the NHS no matter how well I could advocate for myself, and I’ve always had this fear.
If I had cancer symptoms I’m not sure I’d get adequate investigation on account of being “too young” and unfortunately some cancers are only very vague with symptoms.
Trying to get assessed for autism/ADHD, you can’t be on the waiting lists for both so good luck with your multi year wait on the autism list before you might get to the multi year wait on the ADHD list before you might actually get some kind of treatment or support to actually try and live some sort of life.
Even trying to get counselling on the NHS seems like something I have to jump through hoops for while the assessing staff try to fob me off. I’ve got major physical health issues now from years of SSRI use. Coming off was absolute hell.
I’m an NHS worker myself and genuinely, the system is failing everyone, patients and healthcare staff alike. When you cut funding to core services and overstretch an already compromised workforce, tragedies like this will follow.
I had to attend A+E last year with pain so bad I thought i was going to pass out. I got to A+E around 3am, wasn’t seen until around 9am, got given some paracetamol and got turfed back to the waiting room. Finally got a scan around 4pm, a diagnosis of kidney stones by around 7pm, got some painkillers and sat on a trolley all night until finally seeing a doctor at around midday the following day. To their credit I had surgery by teatime that same day.
All the time I was there I just didn’t have the heart or energy to complain. I could see every member of staff stressed and ran off their feet.
That’s so sad. Wythenshawe hospital has always been brilliant for me, it was my local hospital where I grew up. When I was a student I had severe cellulitis that required hospital admission in London. I was discharged on oral antibiotics and the infection recurred. I went to MRI and they just fobbed me off, saying the infection is a rash that was a reaction to the antibiotics, so i went to wythenshawe and had 10 more days of IV antibiotics as an outpatient.
My wife had a brain haemorrhage some years back, but we didn’t realise it at the time, just thought it was a migraine.
Hospital receptionist tried throwing us out or refusing to book us in. Got past obstacle No. 1 and then waited for ages before being seen by a harassed medic at the wrong end of a long shift.
He spoke to my wife for ages who by now just wanted to leave and insisted that if she wanted to leave, he couldn’t stop her but she’d only leave with his agreement if she agreed to a brain scan.
The scan found the bleed and my wife was treated, over a number of years, and is safe / well.
The PS to the story is that a year or two later I was back at the same A&E with my dad and we got the same doctor.
Not only was he utterly brilliant with my dad, but I got the chance to thank him for saving my wife’s life.
I am so so sorry for Oli / OP’s story, but this is not the product of a stretched or underfunded NHS. This was a mistake that shouldn’t have happened.
The A&E we went to was in a large city, was busy, but they did it the right way and I will always be grateful for that.
Oh, and for the other poster that blamed things like this on foreign / imported doctors, the doctor that saved my wife’s life was Palestinian: so no, am not with you on that point.
A couple of years ago a former colleague of mine collapsed in town. He was rushed to hospital; told he had a seizure and sent home to wait a follow up with a specialist. In the meantime, he was told he couldn’t drive – which is a problem for a man who was a rep who spends his entire working life driving.
But hey, it’s on medical advice. Work were good too and gave him a home based job for the 4 months it took for his specialist appointment.
He walked in and before he even sat down the consultant said ‘It’s pretty clear what happened and it’s nothing to do with neurology’ and referred him to cardiology.
Fundamentally, sorry to say, but no one’s paying enough in tax to justify most major medical issues they’ll experience in their life (combined with other things their tax covers). Healthcare is expensive (always will be and we have it cheaper than most countries- nurses and doctors paid less compared to equivalent nations). With generations living longer with persistent medical support (who also didn’t pay enough tax to cover the age they live to) so we’ve got ourselves a huge funding issue with no easy answer
Walton hospital use and train their junior neurologists at hospitals and A&E department’s across the North west of England and Wales they have contracts with Walton hospital. the juniors have sway over the in house neurologists it will definitely be one of them that made the decision.
Nurses over-promoted to take the place of doctors, junior doctors underpaid and clockwatching rather than curious, consultants underpaid and beleaguered and defensive, everyone worried about being sued so unwilling to take any calculated risk, public ever more entitled and unable/unwilling to tolerate even minor inconvenience since Covid, most Trusts about to go bankrupt…. I think you’d call it a perfect storm.
We need an honest conversation about the NHS that starts with absolute needs (care for those who are actually ill) and ends with how we pay for wants (convenience), cause at the moment we are doing nothing well.
[I saw this court case only a few days ago, published very recently](https://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWHC/KB/2026/2294.html). An 8-year-old with asthma went to A&E with low oxygen in his blood, shortness of breath, very fast pulse and quick breathing. They could have just treated him in hospital with steroids, but they sent him home before they should have. He suffered brain damage from the lack of oxygen after going into cardiac arrest. He’s now 17 and minimally conscious, suffering from daily seizures.
It will cost the NHS Trust the best part of a million pounds a year in compensation, mostly just to cover his care.
Part of the reason that A&E departments are under such massive pressure can be traced to poor local GP provision. Our local surgery closed recently, meaning all of the patients from our (very large) suburb are being funnelled into another branch of the same practice a few miles away. Trying to get an appointment is near impossible, so what do folks do? They call 111 who, once they’ve exhausted their script, always fall back to “…if you’re still concerned, go to A&E”. We’ll, of course I’m still going to be concerned if I can’t see my doctor, and 111 have offered no meaningful help, so off to A&E I trot to clog up their waiting room which adds to the problem. The whole system is broken.
Too many general practitioners (village doctor surgeries) just send you straight to a&e if they can’t do anything. They won’t refer you for minor ailments, they just say go straight to a&e because they’ll sort you out because I can’t do anything. I had a small recurring boil that needed to be removed which wasn’t an emergency or accident but I still ended up clogging up a space at a&e. My family/friends have had the same problem. Minor issues that aren’t emergencies, get told to just head to a&e to get sorted.
Obviously this case is horrendous but I just have to point out the poor wording of the article. “he suffered with a cardiac arrest. He did not recover and now lives in complete paralysis”
If he did not recover from a cardiac arrest he would be dead not paralysed!
Import millions
Have to hire hundreds of thousands with sub par qualification into the nhs
Shock result
Poor chap feel sorry for his family 😞
This is why I will never work for the NHS again. No one takes accountability.
RIP 😞
Get rid of GPs. Them not wanting to see people pushes them to A+E.
More funding to A+E to replace them, turn it into a full on triage. Can refer to the healthcare centres (which now would used to be gps surgery’s) for non emergency long term care, book them into hospital for acutes.
When I have been to ane, the last time my bloods wernt taken, I came in unable to move from pain the only tests I got was a urine sample. When I have had blood tests in the past needles are reused (luckily nothing happened), I am significantly learning over time that there seems to be huge amounts of negligence in ane systems. I typically go to ane a few times a year due to chronic illnesses, at least I get told off pretty bad by the gp if I don’t go when new symptoms occur