The mother of a girl who died after having a severe reaction to a Costa hot chocolate has accused the food industry of treating allergen safety training like a “tick-box exercise”, after a coroner concluded she died because of a “failure to follow processes”.
“Vivacious and affectionate” Hannah Jacobs, 13, of Barking, east London, died within hours of sipping the drink bought by her mother on 8 February 2023.
Assistant coroner Dr Shirley Radcliffe also found there had been “failure of communication” between the coffee shop staff and Hannah’s mother Abimbola Duyile.
Ms Duyile said there needed to be “better awareness” of allergies as the “consequence… is that my daughter is no longer here”.
Costa Coffee said: “The loss of Hannah is a tragedy, and our heartfelt thoughts remain with her family and friends.”In a statement, Ms Duyile said: “My beautiful Hannah only had 13 years on this earth when she should have had many, many more.
“Hannah loved life. She was a vivacious, caring, affectionate, outspoken and energetic child with a strong sense of right and wrong.”
Ms Duyile continued: “Having heard all the evidence over the last week it is clear to me that although the food service industry and medical professionals are required to have allergy training, this training is really not taken seriously enough.
“Better awareness is needed in these industries and across society of the symptoms of anaphylaxis.”
She added: “I have always been extremely diligent in managing Hannah’s allergies and she had never suffered a serious allergic reaction prior to this incident.”East London Coroner’s Court heard that on the day of her death neither Hannah or her mother were carrying an EpiPen that had been prescribed.
They had visited the Costa Coffee branch in Station Parade, Barking, owned and operated by a franchisee, to buy two soya hot chocolates before Hannah attended the dentist, which she had an appointment to visit before going to school.
After getting to the dentist, Hannah “abruptly got up and went to the toilet and shouted ‘that was not soya milk'”, her mother told the inquest.
Dentist Iqra Farhad said nurses offered Ms Duyile an EpiPen with 300mg of adrenaline, which the inquest has heard could have helped save Hannah’s life.
The court heard standing up while having an allergic reaction could be detrimental and there would have been a need to lie the child down.
Ms Duyile instead rushed Hannah to a nearby chemist as her “lips and mouth were very swollen and she was itchy”, where she was given an EpiPen injection in her leg of an antihistamine called Cetirizine.
Pharmacist Santokh Kahlon said he would “definitely” have used the extra EpiPen if he had known there was one.
He told staff to look around to see if there were any EpiPens but none could be found.
Attempts were made to resuscitate her and an ambulance was called, but she was declared dead by 13:00 GMT.
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.
Barista Urmi Akter had told the inquest when she took the order from Ms Duyile she had repeated to her the request for a jug be washed out, but had also pointed out that hot chocolate is made from milk.
The inquest also heard 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.
Concluding the inquest, Dr Radcliffe said: “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.”
Failures led to girl’s Costa drink death – coroner
