'Serious failings' after patient dies from infection at an Essex hospital

Found collapsed in the hospital toilets, after days of complaining of being in pain, Lyn O' Reilly, from Tilbury in Essex, died in august 2012 as a result of "serious failings" at Basildon Hospital.

Lyn suffered a fatal infection after a bowel operation. Her family were initially told she had died of natural causes. After months campaigning an inquest was finally commissioned into her death.

The coroner criticised the hospital, and described the standard of patient notes as "woefully inadequate" The inquest was told 'a window of opportunity' to save Mrs O'Reilly was missed. But there would not have been an inquest were it not for the persistence of Lyn's family.

In a statement Basildon hospital said:

The coroner, called for a ban on junior doctors working without supervision overnight after it emerged a single doctor would sometimes be left alone to care for 130 patients.