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Friday, 21 July 2006 09:38 | BNN: British Nursing News Online · www.bnn-online.co.uk
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Sheriff James Tierney has criticised the NHS 24 helpline service over the deaths of two people in Aberdeenshire.
The sheriff said that the system had failed Shomi Miah and Steven Wiseman by not identifying their life-threatening conditions.
He claimed that if NHS staff had "erred on the side of caution" during their diagnosis there was a strong likelihood both patients would have survived.
The families of Ms Miah and Mr Wiseman blamed delays in getting treatment for their deaths in 2004.
Sheriff Tierney's findings followed a lengthy joint fatal accident inquiry, which heard from a range of witnesses including NHS call centre staff.
He said the NHS 24 system, which involves making a diagnosis over the telephone, relied on the quality of the nurse advisors' (NAs) clinical judgement and "a strict adherence to the principle of erring on the side of caution".
His report said that while the system was "not inherently defective"; it had failed both Ms Miah and Mr Wiseman.
"It failed to identify the fact that they were each suffering from a life threatening condition or at least from a condition that the NA did not properly understand," it said.
Dr George Crooks, clinical director of NHS 24, said it would carefully assess the sheriff's observations in conjunction with NHS Grampian.
He said improvements made to the service over the past 18 months included advanced training to raise awareness of meningitis symptoms and changes to the method of dealing with repeat calls.
"The most constructive outcome is that the NHS can learn from these events and continue to improve services for patients in the future," he said.
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