A family say their mother was let down in the worst possible way when she died after being sent home from hospital with a blood clot on her lungs.<\/p>\n
Sue Howell, from Bilston, died from a pulmonary embolism, a clot in the blood vessel connecting the heart with the lungs.<\/p>\n
An inquest heard test results were available which would have alerted medical staff, but they were not acted upon.<\/p>\n
The Black Country assistant coroner Helena Gallagher gave a narrative conclusion, noting the 73-year-old’s death was contributed to by neglect in the medical treatment she received at New Cross Hospital in Wolverhampton.<\/p>\n
In evidence, a doctor told the inquest she did not know the D-Dimer test had been requested and it was not in the patient’s notes, despite the result being available several hours before the mother was sent home.<\/p>\n
In a statement, the hospital apologised for \u00ab\u00a0not providing the standard of care we strive for\u00a0\u00bb and said an investigation since the patient’s death had led to \u00ab\u00a0several actions\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n
Howell’s daughter Vic Smith said she felt \u00ab\u00a0absolutely furious\u00a0\u00bb, adding: \u00ab\u00a0The results were there on a computer system, they were there.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n
Her other daughter, Liz Howell said: \u00ab\u00a0We’re not professionals, medics – we entrusted mum to them and they just let us down, massively.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0They’ll never understand what they’ve done to us. Never and it’s something that we relive daily. There’s not a day goes by when some aspect of that weekend doesn’t come to my mind.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n
The mother-of-four was taken to hospital on 11 April 2025 after falling at home and breaking her arms.<\/p>\n
She was discharged that night, but taken to hospital again the next morning after collapsing at home.<\/p>\n
A Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust spokesperson said: \u00ab\u00a0We would like to express our heartfelt condolences to Mrs Howell’s family for their loss and apologies for not providing the standard of care we strive for.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0Following Mrs Howell’s death, a thorough investigation was carried out.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0We have taken several actions since this incident took place and continue to work with our teams to learn, improve our services and support the needs of our patients and their families.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n
Mrs Howell had two sons and two daughters, and 11 grandchildren.<\/p>\n
Vic Smith described her mum as \u00ab\u00a0an angel\u00a0\u00bb and was the \u00ab\u00a0beating heart\u00a0\u00bb of their family.<\/p>\n
Follow BBC Wolverhampton & Black Country on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A family say their mother was let down in the worst possible way when she died after being sent home from hospital with a blood clot on her lungs. Sue Howell, from Bilston, died from a pulmonary embolism, a clot in the blood vessel connecting the heart with the lungs. An inquest heard test results […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-9779","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9779\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}