Coroner calls for hospital access to GP notes after child’s death
- 6 February 2026
- A coroner has called for hospital doctors to have electronic access to primary care medical notes, following the death of a four-year-old boy
- A prevention of future deaths report said that Akhona Moyo may have survived with earlier intervention
- University Hospitals of Northamptonshire Group said it was "deeply sorry" for the tragedy
A coroner has called for hospital doctors to have electronic access to primary care medical notes, following the death of a four-year-old boy in Nottingham.
Akhona Moyo, who was autistic and non-verbal, died from a brain tumour on 26 November 2022 at the Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham.
In a prevention of future deaths report, dated 28 January 2026, Hassan Shah, assistant coroner for Northamptonshire, said that Moyo could have survived if he had been admitted to hospital and received a scan sooner, and “received earlier intervention directed at reducing intracranial pressure”.
Shah said that hospital doctors did not have electronic access to primary care medical notes, including GP and community mental health notes.
“All the doctors that gave evidence to the inquest stated that access to primary care records would undoubtedly assist them in delivering better patient treatment and care.
“It was felt that access to such information was particularly important in cases such as the present when a patient is autistic and non-verbal.
“There may be a multitude of other reasons why a patient or their family may not be able to relay to doctors a full and accurate medical history,” Shah said.
He added that access to GP notes may enable doctors to have “a more global view of a patient’s medical condition” rather than “working in silos”.
Hemant Nemade, medical director at the University Hospitals of Northamptonshire Group, told Digital Health News: “We offer our sincere condolences to Akhona’s family and loved ones.
“We are deeply sorry that we did not offer an earlier scan to affect this tragic outcome. This is a very sad case, and we recognise the profound impact this has had on Akhona’s family.
“A significant programme of work is ongoing across our hospitals to ensure that the learning from this case is fully understood and translated into meaningful improvements in patient care, so that we reduce the risk of this happening again.”
Northampton General Hospital went live with a Nervecentre EPR in June 2025.
In the coroner’s report, Shah says that the EPR “contains only hospital notes”, adding that “hospital doctors also have access to the Northamptonshire Care Record which contains basic lists of GP visits and medication, but no detailed entries”.
However a spokesperson for Nervecentre told Digital Health News that the EPR gained GP Connect accreditation in 2021 enabling hospital clinicians to “view GP patient records in real time alongside other information in Nervecentre, supporting safer care by providing full visibility of a patient’s history at the point of care”.
“GP Connect is a national service that is available to all NHS trusts using Nervecentre.
“Northampton General Hospital began using Nervecentre in 2025, and its clinicians heavily use GP Connect, accessing primary care records around 2,500 times per day from the Nervecentre GP Connect pages,” the spokesperson said.
Northampton General Hospital, the Department of Health and Social Care, and NHS England have until 24 March 2026 to respond to the coroner’s report with “details of action taken or proposed to be taken”.
