Colchester hospital changes blood testing for transplant patients after woman's death
ESNEFT says it's changing how samples are sent off for specialist tests
The trust that runs Colchester General Hospital is changing the way it tests blood samples for transplant patients after the death of a 41-year-old woman.
Suzanne Fredericks, who had already had a liver transplant, was taken into the hospital with liver and kidney problems.
Her treatment didn't work and she died there on 4th November 2024.
An inquest into her death ended on 4th June 2026, finding she died of natural causes.
What the coroner was worried about
Assistant Coroner for Essex Stephen Simblett wrote a Prevention of Future Deaths report on 12th June 2026.
He raised concerns about how doctors caring for transplant patients in hospitals that aren't specialist centres can get blood test results that are up to date enough.
The report said that without reliably up-to-date results, a patient's chance of survival can be affected, because these patients are so complex to treat.
The inquest heard that treating this patient was especially difficult because of the drugs she was on to stop her body rejecting the transplant.
Some of the doctors treating her felt the time it took to get lab results back was making it harder for them to decide on the right treatment.
What the trust says
The East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust (ESNEFT) replied to the report on 21st August 2026.
It said the kidney unit at Colchester General Hospital can handle most blood samples for transplant patients, but right now it can't do certain specialist tests, including one that checks the level of a particular anti-rejection drug.
That means samples for those tests have to be sent off to a transplant centre to be processed and the results sent back.
The trust said this hadn't been done in a set way before, with samples often sent to whichever transplant centre had carried out the transplant, and each one working differently.
It said it had now decided to do the same thing every time, sending all these samples to a single place that runs the test daily and can push a sample to the front of the queue if asked.
The trust said it was changing the testing process at Colchester General Hospital to cut the risk in future.
The trust's interim chief executive said in the reply: "I would like to personally extend our sincerest condolences to Ms Fredericks' family for their loss."