End selloff, says grieving mum

Linda Peanberg King's son Axel died last November from pneumonia at an out-of-hours GP service in Islington run by private company Harmoni.

She said: "His illness went untreated despite repeated calls and visits over the course of five days to my NHS out-of-hours doctors service, which had been recently privatised."

Axel's condition had been downgraded from urgent to routine meaning there was a delay in him seeing a doctor on the day he died on November 3.

Ms Peanberg King handed a petition with almost 350,000 signatures in to the government today demanding Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt put a stop to further privatisation.

An inquest last week concluded that Harmoni's overall systems were safe and rigorous and no individual was to blame for Axel's death.

However coroner Dr Shirley Radcliffe did find that the performance of the last doctor from the service in contact with the family had been inadequate.

Leigh Day's legal team, representing Ms Peanberg King, said evidence given at the inquest showed the doctor had taken just one minute to assess Axel in a phone call and had recorded "wholly inadequate" notes.

He also assessed Axel in between seeing a queue of patients, booked at a rate of five an hour, at another Harmoni out-of-hours clinic where he was on duty.

Ms Peanberg King said: "I feel the inquest left many of the biggest questions unanswered - like what role NHS privatisation may have played in the mistakes which led to the death of my baby boy.

"After hearing evidence of how that private health contractor had acted, I feel determined to do all I can to stop further privatisation of our NHS."

Harmoni said in a statement: "We believe we have the right underlying systems, policies and procedures to ensure a safe and robust out-of-hours service."