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‘My son would be alive today if he received the meningitis vaccine’

Tim Mason should have been invited to see his GP as part of an urgent catch-up programme but no letter was ever received

Tim Mason should have been invited to see his GP and get the MenACWY vaccination, which protects against four different strains of the meningococcal bacteria that cause meningitis and blood poisoning, as part of NHS England’s first “Urgent Catch-up” programme, as he was born between 1 September 96 and 31 August 97.

He should have received a letter between September 2015 and March 2016 inviting him to come forward. It never arrived. The following year when the next batch of letters were sent to those born between Septermber 1998 and August 1999, Mr Mason should have received a reminder letter urging him to come forward as he had not previously responded. The same procedure should have happened the next year. No letter ever arrived.

During several visits to the GP, an alert system should have been activated showing that Mr Mason was eligible for the vaccine but the software was not working.

The 21-year-old trainee electrical engineer began to feel unwell on 8 March last year and days later told his mum he felt as though he was dying during a hospital visit. Mr Mason was discharged by doctors at Tunbridge Wells Hospital with a wrongly diagnosed upper respiratory tract infection.

In fact, he had contracted Meningitis W, a deadly strain of the disease on the rise among the young, which can lead to sepsis and ultimately be fatal. Within hours he was rushed to the emergency department by his parents after he collapsed. Moments later he suffered a fatal cardiac arrest and could not be resuscitated.

Tim's father, Gavin Mason, said he believes a number of clerical errors led to his son's death (Photo: Mason family)
Tim’s father, Gavin Mason, said he believes a number of clerical errors led to his son’s death (Photo: Mason family)

Last October at the inquest into his death, a coroner concluded that his death could have prevented if he was treated by doctors who missed sepsis symptoms. The coroner also said there were “considerable concerns” for the provision of the MenACWY vaccination for people of Mr Mason’s age. Coroner Roger Hatch gave the cause of death as meningococcal septicaemia and wrote to both the Chief Coroner and NHS England asking whether the system in place to ensure young people receive the vaccine is adequate.

However, latest figures show that tens of thousands of university students and school leavers are still missing out on the vaccine. Health officials have told i that lives are being put at risk.

‘No doubt’

“We are in no doubt at all that Tim would have had the [MenACWY] vaccine had he received any of the three letters that should have been sent,” Tim’s father Gavin Mason told i.

“Similarly, had the software been working on a number of visits to the GP during this period he would have had the vaccine opportunistically. And finally, as the Coroner concluded, had Tim received the hospital’s ‘Sepsis Screen’ and antibiotics from the Triage Nurse as it transpires was the hospital’s procedure, Tim would not have died and would likely have made a full recovery.

“Had any one of these clerical errors not occurred Tim would have been alive and well today.”

The impact on the Mason family – parents Gavin and Fiona and Tim’s older brothers Alex and Nick – has been devastating. Gavin Mason said they are now working with the Department of Health and the Meningitis Research Foundation to improve a system which has so obviously failed.

NHS England is currently considering further actions to ensure alerts are activated on GP patient records systems and patients are made aware of the opportunity to receive a vaccination, including issuing communications to all GPs in England and requiring a change to the default settings on practice systems.

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