A FASTER response from the ambulance service and a 111 call centre could have saved the life of a girl who died from appendicitis, an inquest has heard.

Malaika Adam, seven, of Polsteads, Vange, was misdiagnosed with a stomach bug by an out-of-hours GP.

But her appendix had burst and she had developed sepsis, which led to her death at Basildon Hospital on Friday, May 15 last year.

At a hearing yesterday, coroner Caroline Beasley-Murray said communications failings from call handler IC24 and ambulance delays may have contributed to her death.

She said: “Malaika Farida Promise Adam died of natural causes. There were failings in the service provided by both IC24 and the East of England Ambulance Service.

“It is possible that care might have made a difference to the outcome.”

Chelmsford Coroner’s Court heard Malaika was misdiagnosed with gastroenteritis the day before her death.

She was suffering from pelvic appendicitis, where the appendix is lower in the abdomen than usual.

When her condition worsened the following day, mum Donna Howe, 38, called 111, which in south Essex is handled by IC24 in Ashford, Kent, at 6.43pm.

But she but did not receive a call back from a clinician – who has since left nursing – until 7.49pm.

Malaika was then given a “Green Two” priority by the ambulance service, when a later investigation found she should have been givenamore urgent “Red Two” priority.

It meant paramedics did not arrive at the property until 8.47pm, more than two hours after Ms Howe called 111.

Paramedic Joanna O’Brien said she had been given so little information by IC24 that she did not even know her patient was a child – causing further delays when paediatric equipment was needed.

By this time, Malaika was in such a desperate situation that even sitting her up could have triggered cardiac arrest.

Ms O’Brien said: “Her blood sugar levels were 1.8, which is very low for a child, and her skin was warm to the touch.

“She looked so fragile to the point where if I had moved her, from my past experience, without blood pressure my thoughts were that she would pass away as soon as we sat her up because she had no radial pulse or blood pressure.”

Malaika was eventually stabilised and taken to Basildon Hospital, where the handover from the ambulance service to hospital staff took twice as long as the target 15 minutes, and she later died.

Ms Beasley-Murray accepted the cause of death as natural causes from peritonitis due to acute appendicitis with perforation.