'Northampton General Hospital let my wife die – and won't tell me why’

P a ul Heath, 71, from Milton Malsor, says his wife Jo, who had multiple sclerosis, and died at NGH after her treatment was withdrawn without the family’s consent.

The hospital has offered condolences to Mr Heath and said it has reviewed his concerns.

Mr Heath said: “I have spent 18 months since my wife's death at NGH trying to obtain any medical records concerning the decision to withdraw her treatment. The family refused to give permission but were told their consent was not required.

“They admitted it was only because of previous national media involvement that they agreed to meet me again. I was promised information about poor diagnosis, a botched nephrostomy and the end-of-life care - but nothing ever came back. Now they’ve told me they can’t provide any.”

Mr Heath said he has still not received documentation showing how or why the decision was made.

He said: “They rang me up and said, ‘you’d better come in’. We thought she’d taken a turn for the worse, but when we got there they just said, ‘we’re withdrawing treatment’. We said we didn’t agree, but they told us they didn’t need our permission. It came as a huge shock. One of my sons was in tears. You’d expect that in a situation like this there would be proper protocols, like in discussions about assisted dying, where you need signatures and oversight - but apparently there aren’t any.

"They won’t give me any documentation. If I could have one thing, it would be the documents signed by doctors agreeing that Jo wasn’t going to survive and explaining why they ended her life.”

He said he had raised concerns with the Integrated Care Board, the Care Quality Commission and other health bodies but none had agreed to investigate. He said the Ombudsman had paused its investigation pending the coroner considering the case.

A CQC spokesperson said: “We are aware of the concerns Mr Heath has raised about the treatment and death of his wife and we extend our deepest sympathies to him and his family. CQC liaised with Northampton General Hospital NHS Trust to seek assurances they have taken steps to investigate and discuss these concerns with him. “Although CQC doesn’t have any legal powers to investigate individual complaints, we encourage people to also inform us of any concerns they have as we may use this information to determine if there are wider issues with care at a particular service. These can also help us decide when and where to inspect. This can be done via our customer service centre on 03000 616161.”

NGH’s Deputy Medical Director Pad Boovlingham said: “We extend our heartfelt condolences to Mr Heath following the tragic loss of his wife. We recognise the profound distress this has caused, and we are truly sorry for any pain or uncertainty he has experienced regarding her care.

“We have spoken to Mr Heath and carefully reviewed his concerns through our complaints process, and through appropriate internal and external reviews.

“We have a robust process in place to ensure that patient records are accessible to all individuals who are legally entitled to them, in line with data protection and confidentiality requirements, and are happy to explain this further if required.”

In response, Mr Heath said the hospital’s statement did not answer his questions. He said: “They say they’ve carefully reviewed my concerns, but they haven’t given me a single piece of documentation showing why my wife’s treatment was stopped. They just repeat the same words - condolences, reviews, processes - but nothing that explains what actually happened.

"It’s frustrating and feels like they’re avoiding the real issue,” Mr Heath added.