A coroner has sent a rare Preventing Future Deaths notice to a hospital following the death of a vulnerable patient who caught Covid on a ward with no socially distanced beds.
Retired builder Brian Button, 78, was admitted to Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton after a fall at home.
He caught Covid there and died in October.
Son Warren, 54, said the grandad-of-three, who had no spleen following a 2001 work accident and had been shielding since March, was let down by the NHS.
He said: “It’s beyond belief that something so simple as having beds two metres apart hadn’t been put in place. He was extremely vulnerable.
"He had been told that if you catch this virus, it will kill you. Why on earth did they put such a vulnerable man on an open ward? Visitors were allowed. It makes me really angry Dad was not in a private side room.”
Senior Brighton coroner Veronica Hamilton-Deeley ruled Mr Button, of Pevensey, East Sussex, died due to medical misadventure.
She issued the notice demanding action to prevent similar tragedies and raised concerns that nearly four months after the death, beds on the ward were still not socially distanced.
Rob Haigh, from the hospital’s Trust, said it was working on its response to the coroner.
He added: “We manage our infection and prevention control approach in a consistent and systematic way in line with a wide range of national guidelines and recommendations.”
