A seven-month-old boy who died at an NHS hospital ‘wasn’t safe’ in its care, his mother has told an inquest.
Tommy Kneebone died from an undiagnosed heart problem at Tunbridge Wells Hospital in Pembury, Kent, in January 2023.
Tommy’s mum, Shanice Kneebone, had taken him to her local GP and A&E several times over the previous months.
He was prescribed antibiotics for a respiratory illness after developing a cough in October 2022, and given another course along with an inhaler in December that year.
In footage taken by Shanice that day played to the inquest, the boy could be heard coughing and wheezing heavily.
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The wheeze went away over Christmas but his cough ‘persisted’, the inquest heard.
On January 19 the usually ‘smiley, happy baby’ was taken to hospital by his mum as he was not taking on any fluids and ‘did not seem right’.
She took him again the following day as his condition worsened, adding: ‘I said it was as if he had drunk a Red Bull, his heart was pounding out of his chest.’
Having not had any fluids for two days, he was put on an IV drip.
But there was a delay as one nurse said she couldn’t do it ‘due to a lack of experience’ and others couldn’t find a vein, Shanice told the inquest.
She continued: ‘I was getting angry now and we had been waiting for too long and I was worried.
‘I did not feel Tommy was safe at Tunbridge Wells Hospital as no-one seemed to be taking my concerns seriously.’
After Tommy’s condition worsened further, staff discussed putting him in a coma so he could be taken to specialists at the Evelina Children’s Hospital in London, Shanice added.
But she later learned Tommy suffered a medical episode and staff instead had to perform CPR for more than an hour.
He was pronounced dead at 4am on January 21, after which doctors diagnosed an underlying, undiagnosed cardiomyopathy and determined it was the cause of death.
Tommy’s parents have undergone tests which found ‘nothing to suggest a genetic cardiac problem’ that they might have passed on to their son.
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