Maeve Boothby O'Neill - articles about her life, death and inquest

as I understand it, this is a fact-finding inquiry and not a guilt-determining one. I'm not quite sure what the difference is, but this is very explicitly not a criminal proceeding. Perhaps if real liability is establshed, that would be next. I don't know.

 

Maybe this is in a particular sub-category but my understanding is that an inquest would decide between, for instance, natural causes, misadventure and unlawful killing, without needing to specify who was guilty of what crime.

 

It’s not public record so the public don’t know until on the day. A request for a list by another poster was refused by the court.

 

It’s an inquest into Maeve’s death so there are set outcomes -natural causes, accidental, lawful/unlawful killing, open verdict, industrial disease, narrative verdict.
The Coroner then makes a report if necessary to the appropriate person or authority, I think that could be the HealthMinister or NHS CEO,
https://www.bereavementadvice.org/topics/death-certificate-and-coroners-inquest/coroners-inquests/#

 

Quite often with cases like this it's an open or narrative verdict.

The coroner can also make a Prevention of Future Deaths report if s/he considers it likely that preventive action could have avoided the death.

 

Now that is interesting…

 

Gross negligence isn't always criminal, so I'm not sure.

I'd be a bit surprised if there were strong enough evidence of criminal intent to bring a case.

 

W need a legal person to explain the possibilities, but this Coroner has a plan and knows exactly where this is headed. Hopefully by raising it with NHS it means were it to happen again, it would be Unlawful Killing as they’d been put on notice at the highest level that these failings aren’t ok.

 

I guess the narrative of the coroner will point to systemic failures and as usual little or nothing will be done. When their are no consequences for incompetence in medicine they will just continue with the same practices only patients end up paying via worse outcomes.

 

I don’t think they’re looking at prosecuting an individual, I don’t think gross negligence manslaughter would hold up, but I think the NHS/Government is going to get a serious rocket up the backside over this. I pray that @Jonathan Edwards excellent feeding paper is adopted as a protocol or something. The NHS have to be clear that making wishy-washy claims about “there’s no ME services” doesn’t excuse their duty of care. As do local councils, Adult Services/Care services.

I think TPN is expensive, hence they don’t like to give it.

 

Thing is, people made bad calls, or are crap at their jobs, or are biased, or are stymied by poor management practices, structural issues, or lack of training. Good people who're trying to do their best get overruled or are ignored. It must be rare for a coroner to be able to rule unlawful killing in a case of organisational incompetence, however egregious a failure it is.

Compensation for mistakes and failings can be pursued through the courts, but it's civil rather than criminal litigation. However, as the NHS spends quite a lot of money on this, fear of future claims might be as effective an agent of change as anything else.

We can only hope.

 

I mean, the threat of being sued is really the only hammer left to crack this nut.
I think if there were specific guidance as a result of this, and it wasn’t followed, and someone died it could be unlawful killing?

 

I just wanted to let you know that right now Maeve’s story is the most viewed story on the Guardian. I hope that means both Maeve’s horrific treatment and an understanding of ME as a seriously debilitating illness are reaching people outside of the ME community.

 

It seems there will be considerable coverage in today's printed newspapers. The Guardian:

The Telegraph:

The Daily Mail:

The Daily Express:

 

Suggests some very effective groundwork.

 

Yep. It's such a horrifying story that journalists would likely have been picked up on it anyway, but Sean O'Neill's a colleague and his paper's a rival.

As the articles seem to have done very well for page views, the story's got a good chance of holding onto a place on the editorial priority list.

 

It seems Dr Strain is giving evidence this morning. He is a Consultant and also a Snr lecturer at Exeter Uni Medical School and advisor to Action for ME.

In June 2021 Maeve had been put on an eating disorder ward.

NG tube was considered, but she couldn’t tolerate sitting at 45degrees so it wasn’t given. Risk of sepsis if she were to have TPN so not given.