Tracey McGrann, 54, from Birkenhead, died in May 2024 just a few hours after a trip to the pub, celebrating a friend’s birthday, and was found dead in bed by her daughter
A 16-year-old girl tragically discovered her mum lifeless in bed, a mere four months after her dad succumbed to severe pneumonia.
Tracey McGrann, a mother of three from Birkenhead, was only 54 when she went to bed following an evening out and never woke up. Tracey passed away in May 2024, just hours after a pub visit to celebrate a mate’s birthday. Only three months prior, the grandmother of three had attended St Catherine’s Health Centre in her hometown, having reported chest pain symptoms to her GP.
After undergoing an electrocardiogram (ECG), she received her results days later via text message, instructing her to present herself to A&E immediately, regardless of whether she was exhibiting symptoms. She visited Arrowe Park Hospital with a friend later that day.
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Her daughter Leah shared: “My mum was someone who was scared of dying and terrified of hospitals, so for her to pluck up the courage and go was huge.” Following an ECG in the emergency department, Tracey snapped a photo of the results on her mobile. She was subsequently discharged from the hospital, reports the Liverpool Echo.
Although Tracey believed she was fine, her family now claim doctors neglected to sign off on her ECG, as it was later revealed the test had detected an abnormality. On the morning of 26 May 2024, Tracey’s then-16 year old daughter Alisha found her mum dead in bed, just four months after her father died due to complications from severe pneumonia.
Leah, 25, recalled: “My little sister called me up in hysterics to say, ‘I found mum dead’. I didn’t believe her, and she said, ‘Leah, the paramedics confirmed she’s dead’. When I got there and saw all the police cars and ambulances, I was like, ‘Oh my God’ – that’s when I knew my mum had actually died.
“She was out in the pub the night before for one of her friends’ birthdays, went to bed and died – no one could believe it; her mates, who she had just seen hours before her death, couldn’t. I didn’t think it was her heart because of everything she was told by the medical professionals, but because I didn’t question what the professionals told us – that mum’s heart was fine and awaiting post mortem results – I started thinking of every possible scenario.”
Leah, who was 23 at the time, assumed custody of her devastated teenage sister, abandoning her life in Prenton to relocate into her mum’s home to care for her youngest sibling, alongside her own young children, aged three and five. With her mum no longer available to provide childcare enabling her to work irregular hours, Leah was also compelled to leave her position as a bar manager.
She explained: “This has had a complete domino effect on her children’s and grandchildren’s lives. I’ve had to force my now-17-year-old sister to go into college because if she doesn’t go in, we won’t get that bursary. What I’ve learned out of this is you’ve got to get on with it, so I haven’t had time to grieve.”
An inquest determined Tracey’s death resulted from ischaemic heart disease (IHD), a condition that narrows the arteries. Leah questioned: “I queried why this did not show up on the previous ECG, and the coroner told me that if she was undergoing an ECG, it wouldn’t catch IHD unless she was experiencing symptoms at the time.”
Subsequently, she discovered a “memory” notification on her mother’s former phone, which seemed to display a photograph of the ECG examination conducted on the day Tracey visited Arrowe Park. Leah said: “I was paying my mum’s contract, and saw that she took a photo of the ECG on the day she went to A&E – it popped up on her iPhone’s memories.
“I feel like my mum was watching over me and she sent that memory to me so that I would see it. On her ECG it read – ‘moderate T-wave abnormality, consider anterior ischemia’. When I saw that I looked at the date to confirm it was sent on the day she went to A&E – 9th Feb, 2024. The text message she received from her GP instructing her to go to A&E was sent on the same day. It all matched, and it even flagged up ‘consider ischemia’, which they did not.”
At that point, she contacted Rachel Donovan, a senior medical negligence solicitor with JF Law. A consultation was then organised between Leah and her siblings and the directors of the parent trust overseeing Arrowe Park Hospital, Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. Leah stated: “The trust showed me a form that said something along the lines of ‘what happened and what could we have done differently’. On it, it mentioned the ECG should’ve been signed electronically – but there was no signature.
“During the meeting, I asked the medical professionals what duty of care did they give to my mum – they replied they didn’t. I asked them why was my mum discharged within minutes of doing that ECG – they had no response. They explained that they don’t keep copies of ECG results so there was no paper trail. The only way this was caught was because my mum took a photo of her reading at the time.
“If a doctor had signed the ECG off then at least we would’ve known who was to blame. If they just looked at the ECG mum would’ve been on some pathway to receiving treatment. One of the directors, who was a top medical professional, even stated that if he was on duty that night, my mum would have been admitted and transferred straight to cardiology.
“This trust said that their own GP had caused her unnecessary stress. She was the only person to actually listen to her and give my mum the duty of care she deserved. In the meeting my mum was reduced to a ‘mistake’. How many other ‘mistakes’ have there been? How many grieving family members haven’t investigated the death of a loved one and not caught that they died as a result of a misdiagnosis error?”
Leah’s case against Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust is presently underway. Her solicitor Rachel Donovan, commented: “The tragedy about this case is that it was so preventable. Tracey did everything right. In 2024, she started to suffer with chest pains and shortness of breath so she attended her GP and she underwent an ECG.
“This was noted to be abnormal, and she was referred to her local hospital’s emergency department, which was Arrowe Park Hospital, where the tragic misdiagnosis occurred. This has caused the family to lose their mother and grandmother, and a loved sister and friend. Lessons need to be learnt.”
A spokesperson for Wirral University Teaching Hospital stated: “The Trust cares for hundreds of thousands of patients every year across emergency, specialist and community services and the provision of safe care is our top priority. When issues are identified or on the rare occasion that things do go wrong, we ensure learning is embedded into our patient safety and learning processes. Where appropriate, incidents are investigated in line with national NHS processes and with NHS Resolution, which manages clinical negligence claims on behalf of all NHS organisations.”
It added: “The NHS Resolution data referenced relates to a broad category of claims covering many different clinical conditions and may include incidents that occurred several years before a claim is made or resolved. NHS Resolution itself makes clear that these figures should not be interpreted as trends or league tables, as organisations vary significantly in size, complexity and the services they provide.”
£1.2bn bill for medical negligence claims.
Fresh figures, secured through a series of Freedom of Information requests by Medical Negligence Assist, have shown that NHS trusts nationwide have settled more than £1.2 billion in misdiagnosis-related medical negligence claims during the past six years. Almost 10,000 misdiagnosis claims – 9,989 in total – were filed against NHS trusts in England between 2019/20 and 2024/25. Prior to the Covid-19 outbreak in 2019/20, filed claims reached a peak of 1,824.
Whilst numbers dropped during the peak of Covid-19 – declining to 1,516 in 2021/22 – they have now climbed to a six-year record of 1,922 new claims in the 2024/25 financial year. Of the total claims filed during this timeframe, 7,500 were resolved – indicating three in four claimants received compensation. Total damages of £1,236,646,418 were distributed, representing an average settlement of £164,886 per successful claimant.
Throughout the six-year period, the financial burden of misdiagnosis claims was distributed as follows:
2019/20: £170,678,198.
2020/21: £123,333,640 2021/22: £205,156,280.
2022/23: £240,921,060.
2023/24: £230,627,373.
2024/25: £265,929,667.
