Family hope inquest into death of boy sent home from Rotherham A&E leads to 'accountability'
Yusuf Nazir's family believe his death was a result of failures across two hospitals and other services.
The family of a five-year-old boy who died after he was sent home from A&E say they hope a forthcoming inquest will be a step on the way to holding people accountable for NHS failures.
Yusuf Mahmud Nazir died at Sheffield Children's Hospital on November 23 2022, eight days after he was seen at Rotherham Hospital and sent home with antibiotics.
His family believe his death was a result of systems failures across two hospitals and other services.
Speaking after a pre-inquest review in Sheffield on Wednesday, Yusuf's uncle, Zaheer Ahmed, said he hopes the truth about what happened to his nephew will be exposed during the four-day hearing scheduled to start on April 13.
He said: "We want the truth, but we also want people to be held accountable.
"We don't just want 'lessons have been learned'."
Mr Ahmed said: "The inquest will hopefully point us in the direction of what went wrong.
"But we will explore other avenues and take other actions."
Assistant coroner Rebecca Connell told Wednesday's hearing that she had not changed her view that the inquest will not be a so-called Article 2 hearing.
Article 2 inquests are held when there are questions over whether the state failed in its duty to protect a person's life and allows coroners to widen the scope of their investigation.
But Ms Connell said she was keeping this ruling under review, and told the court that the inquest will be "article 2 compliant" in any event, due to the areas of Yusuf's treatment care she plans to cover.
A second report into Yusuf's care was published by NHS England last year and his family then called for an inquest, which was opened in August.
Yusuf, who had asthma, was taken to a GP with a sore throat and feeling unwell on November 15 2022.
He was prescribed antibiotics by an advanced nurse practitioner.
Later that evening, his parents took him to Rotherham Hospital urgent and emergency care centre where he was seen in the early hours of the morning after a six-hour wait.
He was discharged with a diagnosis of severe tonsillitis and an extended prescription of antibiotics.
Yusuf's family have always said they were told "there are no beds and not enough doctors" in the emergency department at Rotherham, and that Yusuf should have been admitted and given intravenous antibiotics.
Two days later, Yusuf was given further antibiotics by his GP for a possible chest infection, but his family became so concerned they called an ambulance and insisted the paramedics take him to Sheffield Children's Hospital rather than Rotherham.
Yusuf was admitted to the intensive care unit on November 21 but developed multi-organ failure and suffered several cardiac arrests, which he did not survive.
The new report published in July 2025 concluded: "Our primary finding is that the parental concerns, particularly the mother's instinct that her child was unwell, were repeatedly not addressed across services."
Yusuf's mother, Soniya Ahmed, attended Wednesday's hearing with Mr Ahmed and a number of other family members.
In December, the family met Health Secretary Wes Streeting in London and said he was taking their concerns over Yusuf's death "very, very seriously".