- Dylan Cope was discharged with flu symptoms and later died of septic shock
- Laurence and Corinne said the doctor’s photos were ‘protected data’
Hospital chiefs are refusing to help the grieving father of a nine-year-old boy who died of sepsis identify a ‘mystery’ doctor who mistakenly dismissed his symptoms as flu.
Dylan Cope died from a serious failure to provide basic care after being discharged without a full investigation into the possible cause of his appendicitis, a coroner concluded last month.
Tragically, the schoolboy died just over a week later from septic shock and multi-organ failure after his appendix burst. An inquest was opened into multiple ‘individual errors’ by staff at the £350m Grange University Hospital in Cwmbran.
However, it failed to identify a doctor who allegedly told Dylan’s father that it was “highly unlikely” the boy’s stomach pains were related to his appendix and said he had tested positive for flu.
Now Dylan’s grieving parents, Laurence and Corinne, are demanding photos of a ‘shortlist’ of 11 candidates who could be the doctor in question. They hope he can answer critical questions about why the illness wasn’t diagnosed in the emergency department.
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However, directors of the state-of-the-art hospital, which opened in 2020, rejected the request after speaking to the General Medical Council and the deputy chief medical officer for Wales.
In a letter, they told the couple that the photos would be considered protected “data”, also citing the risk of “misidentification”, adding that all eleven have denied seeing Dylan that evening.
Today they said it was a “huge disappointment” that the hospital refused to accept his offer – and warned the mystery doctor could put other children at risk.
Because the ward’s CCTV footage was routinely deleted after four weeks, Dylan’s parents are now making a public appeal for anyone with information about the doctor’s identity.
“We think it is highly likely that someone knows who this unknown ‘doctor’ is,” Cope told MailOnline.
‘As a compassionate human being and possibly even a parent, we urge anyone with any knowledge of it to come forward.
‘We also urge any citizens who were in hospital that night with their sick child to contact us if they have any information that may be of assistance.
“All we want is the full picture: who he was, what he was doing when he reviewed Dylan, his thoughts behind his decision-making, and what his lessons and reflections have been since Dylan’s death.
“We are also concerned for future patients if he remains unknown.”
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Mr Cope took Dylan from their home in Newport to the South Wales hospital’s emergency department on December 6, 2022, on the advice of his GP who suspected his “unbearable” pain was appendicitis.
But a note stating ‘appendicitis’ was not picked up, with a coroner last month concluding that the examination of the schoolboy by a paediatric nurse was ‘inadequate’.
The web designer testified that none of the doctors identified themselves or gave their medical credentials when they saw Dylan, but he assumed one of them was a surgeon.
Mr Cope said the ‘doctor’, who was wearing scrubs and a face mask, was tall, had dark hair, a ‘slightly darker complexion’ and was ‘articulate’, possibly with a slight foreign accent.
The doctor told Mr Cope it was “highly unlikely” that Dylan’s abdominal pain was related to his appendix.
During the examination, the unidentified doctor stated that Dylan had tested positive for Influenza A, a flu virus that was prevalent at the time.
Dylan complained of severe pain on the left side of his abdomen. The appendix is on the right side.
Meanwhile, the female doctor on duty did not perform a checkup before Dylan was discharged. His parents advised him to give him painkillers.
But four days later Dylan’s condition deteriorated. After his parents had made 19 attempts to get through to 111, he was readmitted to Grange Hospital and then transferred to the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff.
Surgeons removed his perforated appendix.
But tragically the schoolboy, who was looking forward to achieving a ‘double birth date’ on his tenth birthday, suffered cardiac arrest and died when life support was withdrawn.
The couple have questioned whether the “doctor” was actually a fraud, but say he seemed familiar with Dylan’s symptoms.
“We have offered the hospital our help in identifying the mystery doctor, but they are not accepting it,” Cope said today.
‘A child died, so this couldn’t be more important.
‘I don’t even ask them to give their names. I just want to see anonymized photos of them wearing face masks, even if I can’t see them in real life. And ideally I can hear their voices.
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‘I’m sure I can rule out some of them as being the doctor Dylan saw that night. And if he is shortlisted, I hope I can identify him.
‘So I just don’t understand why they don’t want to accept my help.
“It’s a huge disappointment.”
His wife Corinne, a civil servant, added: ‘We have a lot of unanswered questions that this doctor could answer.
‘Who asked him to see Dylan? What would he do differently if he found himself in that situation again?
“He could still work in a hospital and see kids like Dylan.
“So for the sake of other families, he needs to give assurances that he has learned from the mistakes made that night.”
During the inquest, Gwent coroner Caroline Saunders concluded that ‘a number of individual errors had been made which resulted in Dylan being sent home from hospital when he should have stayed’ when his father took him to A&E.
“This amounted to a gross failure of basic care,” she added.
In response, the Aneurin Bevan University health board, which runs the hospital, acknowledged taking “full responsibility” for Dylan’s death, due to “a failed organizational system”, and apologized.
It now stores CCTV ‘as long as necessary’.
Mr and Mrs Cope, who have two older children, are now campaigning to raise awareness of appendicitis and the symptoms of sepsis, urging parents: ‘Trust your instincts above all else and seek urgent help.’
A health board spokesman said: ‘We are devastated by what happened to Dylan and our deepest condolences continue to go out to his parents and all his family.
“We are aware of the ongoing distress the family is experiencing as we have been unable to identify the doctor who spoke to Dylan’s father.
‘After a formal clinical assessment, a doctor would typically make a note in a patient’s medical record.
‘This did not happen in this case and therefore we have no information in the notes that would allow us to identify this person
“We have considered all possible options to address their concerns and conducted a thorough investigation.
‘We have also sought advice from the GMC and the Deputy Chief Medical Officer to ensure that we have explored all options available to us as an organisation to identify the person the family is looking for.
“We have spoken openly and transparently with Dylan’s family and explained that we have taken all possible measures to address their concerns.
‘This matter was discussed at Dylan’s inquest and the coroner has not asked us to conduct any further investigation beyond the actions already taken.’