Four care home nurses face probe into death of boy, 5

Health correspondent Rebecca Thomas reveals a litany of failings at one of Britain's biggest disabled children facilities

- Rebecca Thomas

Four nurses are facing a fitness to practice probe after the death of a five-year-old boy at a flagship care home for disabled children, The Independent can reveal.

The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), the UK's nursing watchdog, initially found there was no case to answer over the death of Connor Wellsted, who suffocated in his cot in 2017 while being cared for at the Children's Trust facility in Tadworth, Surrey.

The nurses were referred to the NMC in May 2022, but the watchdog later closed the investigations. It reopened the probe in November 2023 and, this month, after a 19-month-long investigation, decided all four nurses should face fitness to practice tribunals.

No interim conditions have been placed on the nurses, meaning they can continue to work while awaiting the outcome. If the committee finds the nurses are unfit to practice, they could be struck off or suspended. However, the committee can also decide that the nurses' fitness to practice is not impaired and give no sanction.

The Independent revealed that Surrey police had reopened a probe into the handling of Connor's death following a litany of failings over the little boy's care.

Connor died at Tadworth Children's Trust (TCT), the UK's largest brain injury rehabilitation centre for children, which can care for up to 66 young people, having suffocated when a cot bumper became lodged under his chin. He had been there for six weeks, receiving care for neuro-rehabilitation.

He was the first of three disabled children to die while in the care of TCT. Raihana Oluwadamilola Awolaja and Mia GauciLamport died in June and September 2023, respectively.

Multiple failings have been identified in all three children's care, including a failure to appropriately monitor them.