Neglect by ‘inexperienced’ GP led to death of 86-year-old woman who was prescribed 30 times too much Vitamin D, coroner rules

• Eileen Cowles was a patient at the Primrose Care home in West Yorkshire
• Her GP Claire Wiles had not indicated how frequently she should be medicating
• Coroner said that her failures had amounted to a gross failure causing her death 
• He said this failure ‘constituted neglect’ on the part of Dr Wiles 
• Dr Wiles’ fate depends on the actions of Eileen’s family who could bring about a medical negligence case 

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Dr. Claire Wiles (above) arrives at Wakefield Coroners Court, West Yorks., to stand as a witness at the inquest into the death of Eileen Cowles

An 86-year-old woman died after being neglected by an ‘inexperienced’ GP who prescribed her 30 times too much Vitamin D, a coroner has ruled.

Eileen Cowles was given her monthly doses of two colicalciferol tablets every day at the Primrose Court care home in West Yorkshire, which amounted to her taking 40,000 units of Vitamin D.

The elderly woman died weighing around seven stone, after suffered gastrointestinal bleeding which was caused by high calcium levels in her blood from the pills.

An inquest at Wakefield Coroners’ Court heard that Eileen had started taking a low dosage of the medication twice a month to help boost her bone strength after fracturing her hip in September 2014.

When she was moved to Primrose Court the next month, staff were supposedly instructed by her GP Claire Wiles, from nearby Park Row Medical Centre, that Miss Cowles needed to ‘take two’ of the tablets, without an indication of how frequently, the inquest heard.

Dr Wiles, who had only been a GP for a year when she made the error, also told the care home and the pharmacy dealing with the order that the repeat prescription was correct, a coroner said.

Cancer survivor Miss Cowles was left with hypercalcemia, a condition caused by the presence of too much calcium in the blood.

When her condition started to deteriorate, she was taken to Bradford Royal Infirmary in March 2015, and then St James’s University Hospital in Leeds, but died in April that year.

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Eileen Cowles (pictured above) died in 2015 after taking too many Vitamin D tablets

Recording a narrative conclusion, coroner Jonathan Leach told Miss Cowles’s family on Wednesday that Dr Wiles had failed to carry out basic checks when considering to repeat the prescription of colicalciferol, saying that this contributed to the death.

The coroner said the GP also did not consider whether the dosage and frequency of the medicine was appropriate, and failed to check these elements when the dosage was queried by the care home and the pharmacist.

The coroner told the family: ‘These failures collectively amounted to a gross failure which caused the deceased’s death.’

Eileen Cowles (pictured above in her youth). She is said to have weighed just seven stone at the time of her death

He said this failure ‘constituted neglect’ on the part of Dr Wiles, adding that she had failed to check details of the prescription with the hospital where Miss Cowles was treated for the hip fracture.

He said: ‘She assumed that because that medicine had been prescribed in the past that prescription should continue.

‘She did not ask the hospital for a discharge note or ask the hospital for further information.

‘She also did not consider what, if any, monitoring was necessary, which would have been apparent from the hospital discharge note or from a query to the hospital.’

Speaking outside the court, Miss Cowles’s daughter, Christine Bull, 68, said she was relieved that those who looked after her mother ‘have had to explain themselves’.

‘Our mum died because five repeated prescriptions were wrong,’ she said.

‘We hope that people will take note of this, especially because she died of a vitamin D overdose – please always check yours and your family’s prescriptions.’

She added that the verdict had given her family some ‘closure’ following the death of the former pub landlady, who she described as ‘determined’.

Ms Bull said: ‘She was strong. We can’t turn the clock back, but it’s been a very long four years for us and I’m now relieved that we can say we did our best for her.’

The fate of Dr Wiles now rests in the hands of the medical and the family of Eileen who could launch a case of medical negligence.  

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