No charges over death of five year-old given drugs overdose in hospital

It is understood Bailey Ratcliffe was given an overdose of anti-epilepsy drugs at Dewsbury District Hospital. His family say they have been left devastated by the decision not to prosecute anyone involved in his care.

Bailey was diagnosed with epilepsy aged two. On May 27 last year, he was taken to hospital after suffering several seizures. His condition deteriorated and he was put on a ventilator. Later, his heart stopped beating and medics tried to resuscitate him but he died. It was reported the youngster was given seven times too much phenytoin at the hospital. West Yorkshire Police investigated the death and the CPS reviewed the case.

Alison Storey, reviewing lawyer from the CPS Special Crime Division, said: "It is tragic that such a young child died in this way, and reviewing the evidence around what led to Bailey Ratcliffe's untimely death has been difficult. I looked very carefully at the conduct of the doctors and nurses who treated Bailey before he died to consider whether it would be possible to charge any of them with manslaughter by gross negligence.

"The law sets an extremely high evidential hurdle for bringing charges for this offence as the prosecution must prove that individuals caused the death by grossly breaching their duty of care to the person who died. I concluded that it was not possible to prove this to the required standard in this case. In relation to the medical professionals, it was not possible to establish that two senior doctors breached their duty of care to Bailey.

"While I concluded that one further doctor and two nurses did breach their duty of care to Bailey, I did not consider that it would be possible to prove to a jury that they did so "grossly", that is that they acted with such indifference to the obvious and serious risk to Bailey's life, and in a way which was so far from the standard which could be expected, that their actions became criminal.

"The circumstances surrounding Bailey's death were nothing less than shocking and I have written to the family to explain my decision and have expressed my sincere condolences."

But Bailey's mother Carrianne Ratcliffe told the Yorkshire Evening Post: "It has destroyed our lives. It's disgusting."

Professor Tim Hendra, Medical Director at The Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust, said: "First of all I would like to again offer my sincere sympathies and condolences to Bailey's family. We are deeply sorry for what happened. We immediately carried out a thorough investigation to understand and learn from this tragedy. We took rapid and significant steps to improve our practice.

"This has included a detailed review of all our procedures for administering medications and writing prescriptions. We have also put in place additional training and standards that all our staff must meet. We would like to reassure everyone that we have already taken a range of actions to minimise the risk of this happening again. With the police investigation over, we can now consider whether any further action is necessary."