Hospital sent family on mercy dash with wrong man

Mark Newbould was sitting in A&E at Airedale Hospital, near Keighley, waiting to be assessed while his partner Susan Garner and son Ryan Newbould, 26, were anxiously sitting beside a man they thought was him, in an ambulance.

Ms Garner, 63, who was nearly hysterical by this point even kissed the man on the forehead and said to him that “it will all be all right”.

It was only when the paramedic in the ambulance called the patient by another name that alarm bells started ringing, as Mr Newbould began to wonder what was taking his family so long.

The 53-year-old said: “I have been suffering with back pain for some years now, but after a few days of it giving me some jip, I was left in agony slumped against the wall in the hallway.

“I was in so much pain that I thought a disc had gone. A paramedic came out to my home and did all the checks but decided I needed to go into hospital.”

As Mr Newbould, from Skipton, was being taken to nearby Airedale Hospital, Ms Garner and Mr Newbould followed in their car but lost sight of the ambulance while they went to park the car.

When they enquired as to Mr Newbould when entering A&E, they were told he was suffering from a huge coronary and needed to be transferred to Leeds General Infirmary, before they were promptly ushered into a waiting ambulance.

Mr Newbould, an industrial cleaner, said: “A paramedic went up to my partner and asked if she was ‘Sue’, so of course she said yes.

“As you can imagine, when they told her how ill I was, she and Ryan were incredibly worried. They thought I was dying.

“Meanwhile, I was waiting for them, thinking they were just delayed in parking the car. But after half an hour of being in A&E, there was still no sign of them.”

The critically ill patient, who didn’t have any ID on him, was wearing an oxygen mask that covered a large part of his face. However he bore similarities to Mr Newbould, with “a lack of hair and a paunchy stomach”.

When Ms Garner and Ryan heard the patient referred to by a different name Ryan looked further to see that he actually had a moustache, and so told the paramedic that he thought they had the wrong man.

Mr Newbould and his family later learned that the man in the ambulance had recovered, much to their relief. However, they feared that the situation could have been much worse.

“It’s a bit of a comedy sketch moment when you first hear what happened,” said Mr Newbould. “But then you realise how serious a blunder it really was. If the paramedics had asked Susan or Ryan if I was allergic to anything or on any medication, they would have said ‘no’ and this man could have been given something that may have potentially killed him. This kind of thing shouldn’t be happening.”

Once Ms Garner and Mr Newbould arrived at the LGI, the hospital booked a taxi to take them back to Airedale Hospital 90 minutes later.

Meanwhile, Mr Newbould said he had to spend four more hours in A&E and was eventually given some medication and was discharged. But he had only taken six steps, when he nearly collapsed due to a back spasm and was readmitted.

Mr Newbould and Ms Garner have been told the case is being investigated but could take up to three months.

Andrew Catto, executive medical director at Airedale NHS Foundation Trust, said: “We have spoken to and met with Mr Newbould and his relatives, as well as the other family, to sincerely apologise and answer any queries they had about the matter and to reassure them of our identification procedures for relatives, which we are reviewing in light of this event.”

Hospital representatives are also investigating the care that Mr Newbould received while he was in A&E.