A VETERAN international table tennis player feared he had been "abandoned" whilst in the care of staff at Basildon Hospital with his family unable to reach him for over a week, an inquest has heard.

Fred Lockwood, who died in May 2021 aged 88, had been a patient in three different wards after suffering a fall in a Wickford town centre car park in February the same year.

The former marketing manager had already been fighting cancer, but his health deteriorated in the following months after he was admitted to Basildon Hospital, which is part of the Mid and South Essex Trust.

An inquest in Chelmsford on Friday concluded Mr Lockwood, who was previously a world table tennis champion in the men’s over-75 singles category, died from pneumonia and spinal cord injury, having been transferred to his home in Swan Lane for the final weeks of his life.

The inquest, which lasted more than six hours at the Essex coroner’s office, centred around the breakdown in communication between different wards at Basildon Hospital, resulting in a lack of responsibility being taken over Mr Lockwood’s care.

The consequence of the miscommunication was that different hospital departments left it to each other to care for Mr Lockwood.

It meant Mr Lockwood’s family had been unable to reach him for more than a week, and when contact with his family was finally restored, he told them he feared they had “abandoned him” and had been “left to die”.

Dr Luke Hounsom, a consultant physician at Basildon and Thurrock Hospital, told the inquest how he was alerted to the Mr Lockwood’s condition.

He said: “The sister was worried about his clinical condition and raised a concern he had not been seen by the clinical team.

“He had been transferred to an orthopaedic ward from a ward where he had been receiving care to an acceptable standard, and nobody was aware of the transfer.

"He slipped through a net because of a miscommunication."

Area coroner for Essex Sean Horstead questioned the hospital’s director of nursing about the oversight.

He said: “There was a clinician who wasn’t responsible in terms of taking responsibility, but why wouldn’t the clinician have taken ownership [of the patient]?”

“They should have done,” Mr Patience replied.

Although the breakdown in communication was not registered as a cause of death for Mr Lockwood, acknowledged it meant the Lockwood family were out of the loop.

Mr Horstead added: “There was a lack of ownership for this incredibly vulnerable gentleman’s care.

“Mr Lockwood fell between the gaps for a period, and that meant that, as a consequence, his family didn’t receive the communication that should have been in place.”