A BABY boy died of meningitis after being passed from doctor to doctor before it was finally diagnosed — too late to save him.

Harvey Slocombe, only six months old, fell ill on December 12. His parents, James Keat and Karen Slocombe, from Frome in Somerset, rang NHS Direct and were told to take him to Shepton Mallet Community Hospital in Somerset.

On the way, NHS Direct re-routed them to Wells and District Hospital, a further ten miles away, because there were not any doctors free at Shepton. At Wells a doctor diagnosed a viral infection and discharged him. “We didn’t know what the problem was so we believed the doctor and took Harvey home,” Ms Slocombe said.

His condition deteriorated so they took him to Frome Victoria Hospital, where another doctor dismissed their fears, then to the Royal United Hospital in Bath. Mr Keat said: “We told a consultant paediatrician that we thought it could be meningitis but he just said: ‘You have a perfectly healthy baby. Take him home.’ Because three doctors had told us the same thing, we took him home.” But on December 14 they called an ambulance, which took him back to Bath.

He could not be admitted to a paediatric unit in Bristol due to a shortage of beds and was taken 60 miles to the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff. There a scan revealed that the baby was brain dead, and his life support machine was switched off. Tests showed that he had died of bacterial meningitis.

“If meningitis had been diagnosed early and the doctors had done everything but he had still died, I might be able to accept it. He wasn’t given that chance,” Mr Keat said.

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