Call for faster Legionnaire's Disease tests after holidaymaker dies
Faster checks for Legionnaire's Disease should be made after a Conwy woman died after returning from a holiday in Tunisia, a coroner has said.
Sally Ellison. 54, of Rhos-on-Sea, died on 1 June 2012 less than a week after returning from Africa, where she is believed to have caught the disease. At a Ruthin inquest, coroner John Gittins called for prompter checks for Legionella to be made. He recorded a conclusion of accidental death for the former social worker. The coroner said he would be issuing two Regulation 28 reports aimed at preventing future deaths. One report would call for checks for Legionella to be carried out more promptly. The second would be calling for a better system to ensure that when GPs labelled blood tests as "urgent" they remained so. Mrs Ellison's husband Ian, also a social worker, told the hearing he suspected that the source was a spa pool at a desert hotel where they had spent one night. "The water was green and looked stagnant," he said. Mrs Ellison started feeling unwell while still away and her condition deteriorated after returning home on 20 May.