A teenage girl who had bacterial meningitis could have been saved if it weren’t for ‘neglectful’ ambulance staff, a coroner has ruled.

Zara Cheesman, 14, died at the Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham on December 24.

The A* student had begun feeling sick on December 21, having gone to A&E after vomiting and suffering from neck and shoulder pain.

Hospital staff discharged her with a suspected case of norovirus, a stomach bug that causes nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea.

But Zara actually had meningitis, a rare disease that causes inflammation of the membrane around the brain and spinal cord.

The treatment Zara could have received for meningitis when she first felt sick ‘likely would have been lifesaving’, coroner Elizabeth Didcock said. She said there were ‘gross failings to provide ba

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