HEALTH chiefs have agreed to ban equipment used to treat a baby whose lungs burst after she was given 100 times more air than normal at Burnley General Hospital.

Burnley NHS Trust took the decision after discussing a report which investigated the death of Colne infant Charlie Louise Taylor.

Sister Dorothy Holgate was dismissed and staff nurse Susan Ball disciplined following the investigation into the death which resulted from the infant receiving 100 more times air than normal, bursting her lungs.

The report said the equipment used to ventilate the infant had been wrongly set up, directing air, under pressure, directly into the baby's airway, rather than across the face of the airway.

The trust board accepted panel recommendations calling for the rarely-used equipment to be banned and removed from the baby unit, although it is still in use in hospitals such as Great Ormond Street and St Mary's, Manchester.

Increased nurse supervision and training has also been put into place, directors heard.

The report said: "The clinical competency of one member of staff was clearly called into account within the panel's review and at the subsequent disciplinary hearing."

Trust chairman Brian Foster warned against discussion on matters of staff discipline.

"This afternoon we are discussing the investigation and the lessons learned from that."

Trust Executive Director of Nursing Lesley Doherty, who led the official investigation into the death of the hours-old infant in Burnley General Hospital's neo-natal intensive care unit, said matters like the equipment used to treat the child, record keeping and nurse training were peripheral rather than contributory factors to the death of the baby.

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