The death of a 13-year-old girl was caused by Costa Coffee staff failing to follow allergy processes when they served her a hot chocolate, an inquest has concluded.
Hannah Jacobs, who had a severe dairy allergy, died within hours of sipping the drink on February 8 2023, East London Coroner’s Court was told.
Assistant coroner Dr Shirley Radcliffe said that there had also been “failure of communication” between the coffee shop staff and Hannah’s mother.
Dr Radcliffe added: “The root cause of this death is a failure to follow the processes in place to discuss allergies combined with a failure of communication between the mother and the barista.”
The coroner also noted that on the day of her death, “neither Hannah nor her mother was carrying an epi-pen that had been prescribed”.
A post mortem examination found Hannah died after suffering from a hypersensitive anaphylactic reaction triggered by an ingredient in her hot chocolate that caused an allergic response.
Abimbola Duyile, Hannah’s mother, said that treating allergen safety training as a “tick box exercise” was not acceptable.
A member of Ms Duyile’s legal team read a statement outside East London coroner’s court on her behalf, saying: “Better awareness is really needed in these industries and across society of the symptoms of anaphylaxis.
“Allowing people who serve food and drinks to retake an allergy training test for 20 times is not acceptable. Treating allergy training as a tick box exercise is not acceptable, being a medical professional and not reacting quickly to even a possible anaphylactic reaction is not acceptable and the consequence of all of this is that my daughter is no longer here.”
The inquest previously heard that, at the time of Hannah’s death, allergen training for new Costa staff involved a series of online modules that could be accessed at home and a quiz that trainees had to pass. There was no limit on how many times employees could retake the quiz if they failed.
This is a breaking story. More to follow
