‘Nothing untoward with hospital's care' of Bradford former Lord Mayor Stanley King (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Councillor meets BRI boss to discuss questions over treatment of Bradford's former Lord Mayor Stanley King

10:40am Friday 2nd November 2012 in News By Claire Lomax

The chairman of Bradford Council’s health scrutiny committee has reported a “constructive” meeting with the chief executive of Bradford Royal Infirmary, as he makes inquiries about the chain of events that led to the death of a former Lord Mayor of Bradford.

Councillor Mike Gibbons yesterday told a meeting of the health overview and scrutiny committee, he found chief executive of Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Bryan Millar, “open and responsive” at being questioned about the treatment Stanley King received prior to his death in BRI.

Mr King, 80, died in BRI on October 7. Friends of Mr King have alleged he was initially told by a doctor at Leylands Medical Centre in Heaton, he was suffering from indigestion. When his pain continued he saw an emergency doctor on October 5, who also said it was indigestion.

He was taken into BRI in the early hours of October 6 and Mr King’s friends allege he was left waiting for treatment on a trolley at the hospital for up to 12 hours and further say he suffered a burst appendix and peritonitis, which could have been prevented if he had received an accurate diagnosis.

Bradford Coroner Peter Straker has opened an inquest into Mr King’s death and ordered a full investigation to be held.

Coun Gibbons (Con, Ilkley) met on Wednesday with Mr Millar to raise his own concerns about the treatment and subsequent death of Mr King, who served on Bradford Council for 40 years.

Coun Gibbons said: “It was an initial meeting in my investigation and it is my intention to have other meetings with Mr King’s family, GP practice and coroner in due course.

“My meeting yesterday was constructive and the chief executive was open and responsive to being questioned. There is some difficulty because there is a coroner’s investigation going on, but I simply want to say that I had an initial meeting.

“They have not as yet come up with anything they see as untoward and say they thought that Mr King had been dealt with in an acceptable way. I asked if there was a problem that it was a weekend and ‘no’ was the answer.

“There was some question of him being kept on a trolley and we were told that it was a portable bed and he was in a side ward. That is as much as I would want to say because I don’t want to prejudice further inquiries.”

Mr Millar extended an invitation to committee members to attend BRI to see for themselves how the system works.

In other business, the committee heard from people with sensory needs who spoke of their experiences accessing health services and Dr Andrew O’Shaughnessy gave a presentation on how immunisation, screening and vaccination programmes will be maintained during the transition of public health to the local authority.