NHS trust faces criminal charges over two child deaths at Broomfield Hospital

Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust, which runs Broomfield Hospital in Essex, has been indicted on three counts of unsafe care relating to two child deaths from sepsis. Zadie Ajetunmobi, aged three, suffered cardiac arrest and died within ten hours of arrival in November 2022 after a delay of more than seven hours in receiving intravenous antibiotics. Selina Samarina, a two-year-old with Down's syndrome, was sent home by a very junior doctor on 7 April 2024 despite a triggered sepsis protocol; a senior doctor was unavailable for two and a half hours, and she died two days later.

The Care Quality Commission filed the charges under the Health and Social Care Act, and the trial is scheduled for December at Chelmsford Magistrates' Court. The trust has pledged to work closely with the CQC and will enter pleas on 3 December, while its chief executive, Adam Sewell-Jones, declined further comment pending the legal proceedings.