Mother blames ambulance service after both her children took their own lives
A mother has blamed an ambulance service for the deaths of her two children, who took their own lives within 10 months of each other.
Quinn Milburne-Beadle, 17, died when a paramedic failed to follow basic guidelines after being called out to try to save her life in 2018.
Her 21-year-old brother Dyllon took his life 10 months later when he discovered from an independent review that his sister could have been saved.
The North East Ambulance Service (NEAS) was found to have attempted to cover up its failings in the case of Quinn and other patients, altering documents and withholding information from coroners.
Tracey Beadle, the mother of Quinn and Dyllon, said she holds the NEAS responsible, at least in part, for the deaths of her children and has called a review into the actions of the service “a whitewash”.
She said: “We lost our daughter in 2018 and then 10 months later we also lost our son Dyllon after he read the first review done by an independent solicitor into what happened on the night Quinn died.
“He said it was haunting him, and a few days later he took his own life. We hold the trust partially responsible for Dyllon’s death as well.”
In January, Gavin Wood, a paramedic, was struck off at a misconduct hearing for failing to give appropriate life support to Quinn when he was called to attend her attempted suicide in December 2018.
A tribunal heard that he failed to follow guidelines for providing life support and stopped giving her CPR when he should have continued to do so.
A review into the incident found details about accounts from those attending as part of an investigation had been removed and amended, and there were delays in getting information to the coroner.
The ambulance service has apologised for its failings after an independent review, which was ordered by Sajid Javid, then the health secretary.
But Mrs Beadle said the investigation is meaningless, adding: “How can it be called independent? It’s the NHS looking into the NHS. We won’t be happy until we get a full public inquiry.
“We’ve been treated abhorrently. The NEAS covered up the mistakes made by the paramedic.
“If they had held their hands up straight away and apologised and done things to put things right, I don’t think we would’ve lost our son and be here five years down the line fighting for our children. We feel an apology is too little, too late.”
The review looked into failings in four cases raised by a whistleblower, including that of Quinn. It noted “leadership dysfunction” and “antagonism” between leadership teams, adding that staff were “fearful of speaking up” and those who did raise concerns were left “anxious, frustrated and stressed”.
Included among the recommendations were that concerns about reports being altered inappropriately should be addressed and call handlers should be trained to ask for help where the clinical safety of patients is at risk.
It was also recommended that a senior, independent doctor should be included in the review of deaths and their referral to a coroner.
Helen Ray, the NEAS chief executive, said she had written to the families involved to apologise and invited them to meet in person, adding that the 15 recommendations were being “actioned at pace”.
“There were flaws in our processes and these have now either been addressed or are being resolved. We are grateful the report recognises that we have a new leadership team committed to addressing the issues,” said Ms Ray.
She added that governance, systems and processes relating to investigations and coronial reports had been “strengthened” and resources had been increased allowing issues of concern to be “easier to be flagged”.
