‘Catalogue of errors’ at scandal-hit North East hospital before grandmother’s death

Marianne Mortemore was admitted to the University Hospital of North Durham with issues from an ongoing skin condition – but passed away after a “catalogue of errors” in her care. The hospital is already subject to national scrutiny for its breast cancer service, with potentially thousands of women suffering from unnecessary and sub-standard treatment, and poor standards of care and compassion from medics.

Marianne, who was 69 and from Durham, was wrongly given penicillin intended for another patient, despite numerous warnings to staff of her allergy. She needed to be resuscitated and sadly never opened her eyes again.

The mother-of-two and grandmother-of-four - who was placed in a makeshift bed in the centre of the hospital’s Ward 6, rather than in a designated bay – also had to experience staff missing the fact she had developed critical limb ischaemia, a life-threatening disease which restricted blood flow to her leg. This was only discovered by chance after Marianne’s family asked a podiatrist to cut her toenails.

Following what the hospital called a “breakdown in communication”, which caused delays in Marianne being given a scan and being transferred to Sunderland Royal Hospital for specialist vascular care, it was too late - and Marianne died days later, in February 2024.

During Marianne’s six day stay in Durham, during which she was even left without a pillow, she suffered several instances of distressing care and failures to give medication on time. This included an incident where she was left “screaming in agony” as staff attempted to insert a catheter – only for one nurse to then leave her in pain while she socialised with and “high fived” some of her own personal friends who came to visit her at work.

Marianne’s daughter Catherine and son David complained to County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust about the standards of care their mother received – with the Trust apologising for the hospital’s failings.

Writing to the family in response to their complaint, the Trust said its “investigation has confirmed that a number of errors and oversights have affected the quality of care provided to Marianne, in what was to be her final days.

“We recognise this will have caused unimaginable distress to Marianne and to yourselves. For this, we are so incredibly sorry.”

It also pledged to share its investigation with the nursing team “to enable reflection on the impact of their attitudes and behaviours”.

“We live with a mixture of anger and upset at what happened to our mam – we couldn’t really believe what was going on at the time, she was deteriorating so quickly that her getting better was our priority, but some of the things that happened in that hospital will live with us forever,” says Catherine.

“It was just a catalogue of errors, as if our mam didn’t matter. Mam was highly allergic to penicillin and there were warnings everywhere – she had her own bracelet, the hospital gave her a wristband, it was on the board, in her medical notes. They didn’t even apologise when they told us what had happened, they just said there had been a mistake.

“And when she was being taken to hospital, I put a bandage round her ankle to help her get down the stairs – days later we discovered that was still in place, obviously having not been checked. It was only when we asked a podiatrist to cut her nails and raised this that they realised the need to act – and even then there were delays.”

David says: “We have never been the kind of family who wants to make a scene, we always act with courtesy, but when your mam is robbed of her dignity in the way she was, that has been so difficult. I can still hear her screams when they were trying to insert the catheter, that will stay with me forever – only for one of the nurses to come out from behind the curtain and start high fiving her mate. Is that the way they would want their own mam to be treated?

“Growing up it was always me, Catherine and our mam, just the three of us, our mam was our best friend. She was the loveliest, kindest person you’d ever meet and she’d give anyone her last. For someone so lovely to be treated in this way, it makes you realise it could happen to anyone – and that’s why we want to speak out, so this doesn’t happen to another family. This has left us absolutely broken, and our kids have really struggled.

“While the Trust has apologised and said they will learn from what happened, talk is cheap. Enough is enough and what happened to our mam can never happen again. Me and Catherine have been left on the floor by this, and we want to see things change.”

They are being supported by law firm Slater and Gordon, with specialist clinical negligence solicitor John Lowther acting on their behalf in holding the Trust accountable.

“The standard of care Marianne received from the University Hospital of North Durham was woeful – from being given the wrong medication and delays in acting with regard to a life-threatening condition, through to poor communication and a total lack of compassion, Marianne has been utterly failed here,” says John, head of the law firm’s North East office.

“Marianne’s family are heartbroken at the loss of such a central figure in their lives and it’s a loss that is extremely difficult to deal with. We will support Catherine and David in every way possible to get accountability from the Trust and to help ensure no one else has to go through what Marianne did.”