Southampton Hospital employee who died after collapsing on work call 'let down' by colleagues

• ITV News Meridian's Sally Simmonds spoke to Nicholas Ginger's family at Winchester Coroner's Court.

The family of a hospital manager who collapsed and later died while on a call to NHS staff say he has been "let down" by the organisation he worked for.

The coroner’s court in Winchester heard Nicholas Ginger from Shirley, Southampton, suffered a brain bleed while on a call to occupational health to discuss his return to work.

The 65-year-old father of three was a manager at University Hospital Southampton, responsible for planning and modernisation.

Mr Ginger had been off work for a while and had some serious health issues, including heart attacks.

Occupational nurse Jackie Chatteron, who had been speaking to Mr Ginger when he collapsed, sent a Teams message about the incident to another colleague before calling 999.

It was 6 hours before his family found him and called an ambulance. The coroner recorded a verdict of natural causes but said that she had never come across anything like this in over 30 years as a coroner.

• Maria Burgess spoke to ITV News Meridian outside court.

The family of Nicholas Ginger listened to three days of evidence about their 65-year-old father.

His daughter Maria Burgess said: "It’s been quite an ordeal but [the coroner] was exceptional. She was fair and very empathetic.

"I felt she did an incredible job in an extremely difficult situation she said she’d never come across anything quite like it in more than 30 years of doing her job which speaks volumes for the shocking nature of what’s occurred."

This afternoon, the coroner said she found it "impossible to reconcile the various strands of evidence."

The court heard that two conflicting reports of Mr Ginger final hours were given by Southampton hospital.

Occupational health confirmed that he had suffered an acute medical episode, but a patient safety report said he had not.

The family heard Mr Ginger was talking to nurse Jackie Chatterton from occupational health in November 2022 when he disappeared from the screen.

He was found unconscious 6 hours later by his family, at around 5pm on 30 November, and taken to hospital, but the bleeding on his brain was inoperable and he died two days later on 2 December.

The coroner said she could not reconcile the evidence from Ms Chatterton which was that she messaged her line manager to say Mr Ginger had collapsed - but that she meant collapsed "emotionally".

Ms Chatterton also previously told the hearing she thought it would be confusing to call an ambulance from her location in Southport and realised in hindsight she should have called an ambulance.

The coroner has told Southampton hospital to re-visit their investigation, taking into account the occupational health report.

A spokesperson for University Hospital Southampton said: "We are deeply saddened by the death of our valued colleague and our thoughts and sympathies remain with Mr Ginger’s family.

"The circumstances surrounding Mr Ginger’s death were investigated and reviewed, and as a result we have introduced a series of improvements to our Occupational Health processes and guidance, which have also been shared with our healthcare partners across our system.

"Following today's inquest, we will be sharing an updated report of our findings with Mr Ginger’s family."

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