“We are extremely sorry. We had two opportunities to intervene or to do more than we do and we didn’t take those opportunities.”
So says Dr Magnus Harrison, medical director at Burton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, who admitted more could have been done by staff to ask the right questions.
There were three instances when staff at Burton’s Queen’s Hospital met AJ in 2014.
The first was in February when she suffered what was diagnosed as a febrile convulsion.
"She was brought in by the ambulance service, and they described the febrile convulsion to us. We sought to prove that as a diagnosis rather than thinking about it more laterally as a diagnosis so we didn’t exhibit enough professional curiosity.
"We didn’t ask the right questions about what was happening at home."
The second time AJ visited hospital was to be treated for a cut lip which her mother said had happened when she slipped in the bath.
"Mother was plausible and described a situation where any toddler may fall. Again we had an opportunity to ask more than we did ask. We let her go home."
The third time was following AJ’s tragic death.
Dr Harrison said: "It is about us asking the right questions, thinking what is beyond you. Febrile convulsion – I can understand why the diagnosis was made, but we weren’t professionally curious enough at that time."
Ayeeshia-Jayne Smith serious case review
The hospital has now implemented rigorous changes since AJ’s death.
"We have changed the admission documentation on our paediatric assessment unit.
"Since 2014, there is almost a check list for our staff to prompt questions around the social situation; who lives in that house, are parents taking drugs, any other statutory bodies involved, and we didn’t ask those questions.
"Would that have made a difference? I don’t know. But should we have done it? Absolutely.
"The report is absolutely harrowing. There were multiple times where things could have gone differently. As a result of various failings AJ died at the hands of her mother and it is a tragedy. We accept the findings related to us completely.
"We are extremely sorry. We had two opportunities to intervene or to do more than we did and we didn’t take those opportunities."
