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Disabled Woman Dies Choking on Cake Despite Diet Warnings
10 Mar
Summary
- A disabled woman choked and died after eating cake.
- Therapists had previously advised the woman to eat only pureed food.
- An inquest highlighted issues with information sharing between services.
A disabled woman, Emma Turner, tragically died in January 2023 at her Derby home after choking on cake. Therapists had previously advised her to consume only pureed food due to her profound disability, quadriplegic athetoid cerebral palsy. An inquest, concluded recently, has exposed significant problems with information sharing between various health and social care services involved in her care.
Assistant coroner Sabyta Kaushal issued a prevention of future deaths report, noting a lack of regular communication between agencies and inadequate addressing of safeguarding referrals. Speech and language therapists had not assessed Turner in person for 11 years between child and adult services. While pureed food was recommended, no face-to-face assessments for clinical or social needs, nor welfare checks, occurred from 2019 until her death.
