Posted on 2 December 2010

Man’s fall from hospital bed leads to NHS trust fine

Read time: 2 minutes

An NHS trust has been fined after an 89-year-old man died after he fell out of his hospital bed.

Francis Steele, described as “very frail” was assessed by senior staff at Telford’s Princess Royal Hospital as needing rails on either side of his bed, however staff were only able to find one and a day later, Mr Steele fell out of the open side of his bed. He died two weeks later from his injuries.

Shrewsbury & Telford Hospital NHS Trust was fined £50,000 after admitting breaching health and safety regulations. An HSE investigation found that another bed rail would have prevented Mr Steele falling from his bed but despite this staff, after being initially unable to find more than one, did not make any further efforts to try and get another bed rail.

After the hearing HSE investigating inspector Lindsay Hope said that the hospital’s failure to provide another bed rail was unacceptable, which was made worse by chronic staff shortages on the hospital ward which admitted Mr Steele.

Mr Hope said: “The trust’s own policy was not to trigger any action on staff shortages until the levels became ‘high risk’. As a result, the trust was typically working at high risk or very high risk. It is a tragedy for Mr Steele and his family that Shrewsbury & Telford Hospital NHS Trust failed in its duty of care towards him.”