Patient died after 27-hour wait

A woman who suffered complications after a back operation died in hospital after waiting 27 hours to be seen by a senior surgeon.

When one arrived at 39-year-old Amanda Daley's bedside she was having a heart attack, an inquest heard yesterday. She died two hours later. The mother of two collapsed at Epsom General Hospital, Surrey, after an operation for a slipped disc. A post mortem revealed she had peritonitis, a potentially fatal inflammation of her abdomen.

It took more than 20 hours and 14 calls from a junior doctor to reach a surgeon, the inquest at Chertsey, Surrey, heard. Then it took senior house surgeon Keith Jones seven hours to respond, and he failed to diagnose the condition. Painkillers could have masked the signs of peritonitis the inquest was told. Later, Mrs Daley's husband Steve, a 42-year-old retired company director, said he was considering legal action against the hospital. The coroner recorded a verdict of accidental death.