{"id":143350,"date":"2025-05-30T05:59:14","date_gmt":"2025-05-30T05:59:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/143350\/"},"modified":"2025-05-30T05:59:14","modified_gmt":"2025-05-30T05:59:14","slug":"nurse-was-confident-little-girl-didnt-have-meningitis-within-hours-she-was-dead-inquest-hears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/143350\/","title":{"rendered":"Nurse was ‘confident’ little girl didn’t have meningitis \u2013 within hours she was dead, inquest hears"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lila and her mum had gone to A&E after the little girl had spent hours suffering ‘classic’ meningitis symptoms, say the family’s legal representatives(Image: Family handout)<\/p>\n

A nurse has told an inquest how she told a worried mum she was \u2018confident\u2019 her child did not have meningitis \u2013 hours before the five-year-old died from the life-threatening illness.<\/p>\n

Lila Marsland\u2019s mum, Rachael Mincherton, asked paediatric advanced nurse practitioner Claire Casey <\/strong>whether her child was suffering from meningitis amid \u2018classic signs\u2019 of the brain-swelling condition, heard Stockport<\/a> Coroners Court today (May 29).<\/p>\n

But Ms Casey told the jury how she believed a child\u2019s neck pain was because of inflamed lymph nodes, and that her high heart rate was a result of the pain.<\/p>\n

Meningitis remained a \u2018differential diagnosis\u2019, the court heard, but the nurse said her physical examination of Lila, and Lila\u2019s blood test results, suggested the symptoms came from tonsillitis.<\/p>\n

On the third day of an eight-day inquest into Lila\u2019s death, the court heard how Lila and her mum had gone to A&E after the little girl had spent hours on December 27, 2023, experiencing headaches, a sore throat, a high heart rate, neck pain and limited neck movement, vomiting, lethargy, and was unable to pass urine.<\/p>\n

Ms Casey, who worked at Tameside<\/a> Hospital\u2019s paediatric A&E department, examined Lila and was \u2018clinically concerned\u2019 that the symptoms could be coming from tonsillitis, meningitis or another underlying illness, like a virus.<\/p>\n

The nurse found Lila\u2019s lymph nodes were swollen and that her neck was so sore that the little girl \u2018cried out in pain\u2019.<\/p>\n

But blood tests results came back suggesting Lila\u2019s white blood cell count was normal, indicating there were no high levels of infection.<\/p>\n

Lila Marsland, with her mother Rachael and sister<\/p>\n

Legal representatives for the family quizzed the nurse about why Ms Casey did not diagnose Lila with meningitis. Sarah Edwards, representing the family, told Ms Casey that many of the symptoms Lila was experiencing were \u2018classic signs\u2019 of meningitis, submitting that the nurse should have made the diagnosis.<\/p>\n

Ms Casey told the court that, although meningitis remained a concern, she felt that the condition would not have caused the neck to be so sore to the touch.<\/p>\n

Ms Casey also gave evidence how she felt the blood tests would have shown much higher markers of infection had Lila been suffering meningitis.<\/p>\n

The nurse added that she believed Lila\u2019s high heart rate to be a result of the pain she was in, and the anxiety from being examined.<\/p>\n

The only way of conclusively testing Lila for meningitis would have been a lumbar puncture, said the nurse. Ms Casey called the test \u2018highly invasive and painful\u2019, saying the procedure on a five-year-old would have to be done in an operating theatre, likely requiring a general anaesthetic.<\/p>\n

Ms Casey told Coroner Chris Morris she never ruled out meningitis, but followed a working diagnosis and began treatment for tonsillitis.<\/p>\n

\u201cRightly or wrongly, I made that diagnosis,\u201d said the nurse. Instead of discharging Lila as a standard tonsillitis case might sent home, Ms Casey said she kept Lila in hospital for further observations and arranged a discussion with a paediatrician because she was still \u2018concerned about something underlying\u2019.<\/p>\n

Lila Marsland was taken to hospital by her district nurse mum(Image: Submitted)<\/p>\n

Ms Casey accepted that, \u2018with hindsight\u2019, she should have started investigations into whether Lila had sepsis with the \u2018sepsis six bundle\u2019. The bundle is a set of interventions for the rapid management of sepsis, including cases where sepsis is complicated by meningitis<\/p>\n

At the end of her evidence, Ms Casey gave her condolences to Lila\u2019s mum and dad. Sat in court, the devastated parents shook their heads in response.<\/p>\n

Lila was found unresponsive in bed by her mum on the morning of December 28, 2023.<\/p>\n

Around eight hours earlier, she had been discharged from Tameside Hospital. An inquest jury heard the family were told medics suspected Lila had tonsillitis but ‘couldn’t rule out’ meningitis, and gave her a dose of antibiotics.<\/p>\n

After being discharged at around 2am, Ms Mincherton said they drove home, got in bed together and fell asleep.<\/p>\n

Lila, from Hyde<\/a>, woke up about 4am complaining of a headache and was given a half dose of Calpol. At around 9am, Ms Mincherton woke up and found Lila unresponsive.<\/p>\n

She called 999 and attempted CPR. Paramedics arrived at the home and Lila was pronounced dead at 9.19am. A pathologist has said she believes Lila died as a result of ‘pneumococcal meningitis.’<\/p>\n

Ms Mincherton, who at the time worked as a district nurse at the same hospital, has told the inquest she has concerns her daughter was discharged ‘inappropriately.’<\/p>\n

Proceeding.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lila and her mum had gone to A&E after the little girl had spent hours suffering ‘classic’ meningitis…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":143351,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[105,10585,211,1288,1026,59729,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-143350","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-hyde-and-longdendale","10":"tag-nhs","11":"tag-stockport","12":"tag-tameside","13":"tag-tameside-hospital","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114595257926201138","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143350\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}