A hospital sent a little girl home before 3 a.m. with antibiotics and a throat spray, and her mother found her unresponsive in bed a few hours later.
Tameside and Glossop Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust has paid an undisclosed sum to Rachael Mincherton and Darren Marsland, the parents of five-year-old Lila Marsland, in a settlement announced on Oct. 30, 2026 and since approved by the court, a trust spokesperson said.
Lila died at the family home in Hyde, Greater Manchester, England, on Dec. 28, 2023, hours after Tameside Hospital discharged her with a diagnosis of tonsillitis. She had meningitis, and she died weeks before her sixth birthday.
The trust admitted failings in the assessment, diagnosis and treatment of her bacterial meningitis, and it accepted that those failings materially contributed to her death.
The spokesperson said: “We are pleased that this settlement has been reached and approved by the court. This was a tragic case in which there were clear missed opportunities in Lila’s care. We express once more our sincere and unreserved apologies to the Lila’s family for this tragedy. As a Trust, we have made and will continue to make improvements to ensure we learn from this case.”
The Question Her Mother Asked
Lila fell ill on Dec. 27, 2023, two days after Christmas, during a family outing to Dove Stone Reservoir. She had a headache, neck pain, a sore throat and vomiting.
Mincherton took her daughter to Tameside Hospital at about 5 p.m., and by then Lila also had a high heart rate, a fever and lethargy. Her mother asked an advanced nurse practitioner directly whether this could be meningitis. The practitioner suspected tonsillitis and said blood tests would be taken.
A senior doctor approved her transfer to the pediatric accident and emergency department (A&E) without visually examining her. Staff then admitted her to the Children’s Observation and Assessment Unit and diagnosed tonsillitis.
The hospital discharged Lila at around 2:40 a.m. on Dec. 28 with oral antibiotics and a throat spray, and did not keep her in for intravenous treatment.
Mincherton woke at about 9 a.m. and found Lila unresponsive in the bed. She and paramedics tried to resuscitate the girl, a pupil at Flowery Field Primary School, who was pronounced dead at 9:19 a.m. A post-mortem examination found she died from pneumococcal meningitis.
What the First Hour Could Have Changed
Coroners opened an inquest in October 2024. Jurors at Stockport Coroners’ Court then sat through the evidence from May 27 to June 5, 2025. The eight-day hearing ended in June 2025 with the jury’s conclusion.
The jury concluded that Lila died as a consequence of undiagnosed and therefore untreated pneumococcal meningitis, contributed to by neglect, and that her death was preventable. Jurors found that admission plus appropriate broad-spectrum antibiotics within the first hour of triage would have prevented it.
Bacterial meningitis, unlike the viral form, can become life-threatening within hours, and the normal treatment is in the hospital with intravenous antibiotics.
Coroner Chris Morris issued a Prevention of Future Deaths report after the inquest. He raised concerns about the hospital’s recording and sharing of clinical information across a mix of paper and digital systems, with details lost between departments, about child sepsis screening guidance, and about adherence to national meningitis guidelines.
Intravenous Antibiotics She Never Received
Medical negligence lawyers at Irwin Mitchell brought the legal action for the family. The meningitis, the trust went on to admit, was already present when staff assessed Lila on the Children’s Observation and Assessment Unit, and there had been a failure to adequately assess, diagnose and treat her. Keeping her in the hospital and starting her on intravenous antibiotics was the course the trust accepted it should have taken.
Representing the family in the case was Jack Bookey, the medical negligence lawyer at Irwin Mitchell. He said the admissions provided important answers about her care in Lila’s final hours, and added that the family hope telling her story raises awareness of meningitis and prevents a similar death.
Mincherton said: “Losing Lila is something we’ll never come to terms with.”
Mincherton, a district nurse for the same NHS trust that diagnosed her daughter, had a message for other parents sitting in an emergency department with a sick child: “Parents should never be afraid to ask questions or seek help or a second opinion if they’re concerned.”
Lila left an older sister, Ava, 16, and Mincherton said the two girls adored each other. Her parents set up a charity in her name, Lila’s Light, and it supplies bereavement support packs to children who have lost a brother or sister. Donors have given the charity about £33,000 so far.
A Law Student’s Three Visits
In a separate case, Teesside coroner Clare Bailey found that neglect contributed to the death of Libby Instone, 20, a normally fit and healthy law student at Newcastle University from Billingham, Teesside, who hoped to become a barrister. Instone returned from a trip to London with her boyfriend on Aug. 16, 2023, vomiting and in extreme pain, and her mother called 111 on Aug. 18, 2023, an inquest heard. Doctors diagnosed gastroenteritis across three visits to an urgent care center in just over 24 hours, and she collapsed minutes after telling her mother she was scared. The inquest gave her cause of death as infarction of her small intestine. Her mother, Susan Instone, 57, gave a statement to the inquest, and her father, Ian Instone, also attended. The local health trust offered an unreserved and sincere apology.