Family of young mum Jessica Rudland with brain injury still searching for answers from Ipswich Hospital

The family of young mum who suffered a brain injury while in the care of Ipswich Hospital say they have had to ‘push and push‘ for almost two years for answers to what happened – and are still in the dark.

Jessica Rudland, 23, was rushed to A&E on August 2, 2015, suffering from heart palpitations and breathlessness just 15 days after giving birth to son Lewin.

She suffered a cardiac arrest and the family claim she was then ‘abandoned’ by staff for a period of time. Jessica suffered a hypoxic brain injury and spent 13 days in a coma at Ipswich’s critical care unit. She was transferred to Papworth Hospital after a second cardiac arrest, multiple organ failure and sepsis.

The family have criticised a Serious Incident (SI) investigation conducted by Ipswich Hospital, saying it was too narrow and they were excluded from taking part. They also claim the hospital’s timeline of events contradicts their own.

Almost two years later, an independent investigation has identified various failings in the hospital’s SI inquiry. It claims the investigation was ‘very narrow’ and that the trust ‘lacked professional curiosity to explore key lines of inquiry including those raised by the family’.

It also says the trust ‘failed to secure timely witness evidence’ and that ‘high volume, poor quality’ communication ‘created a toxic mix’ preventing the family from contributing to the inquiry.

• Watch a video diary of Jessica Rudland’s time in critical care.

Jessica’s dad Chris Rudland said: “We are going through enough with poor Jess. The investigation concerning our daughter has become dehumanised.

“I haven’t worked in two years, I’m out doing this every day – I’ve had to push and push for answers. It feels like they try to wear you down and make you go away. I fail to understand what they’re doing.

“Communication with the trust has been a huge problem, whenever the questions we have posed cannot be answered, we are assigned a new family liaison person. The SI report was 16 pages long and they seem to have missed everything of importance.”

“It has been devastating because you cannot move on. We are still feeling some of those same feelings from critical care because they’re not answering our questions.

A hospital spokeswoman said: “Because the investigation is currently ongoing we are not in a position to comment at this time.”