Govt should set legally-binding air pollution targets after 9-year-old's death, coroner says

Govt should set legally-binding air pollution targets after 9-year-old’s death, coroner says

Apr 21, 2021

Legally binding targets for particulate matter pollution should be looked at by the government, the coroner in the inquest of nine-year-old Ella Kissi-Debrah has said.

In a report to prevent future deaths, assistant Southwark coroner Philip Barlow said there is low public awareness of sources of information about national and local pollution levels and greater awareness would help people reduce their exposure to air pollution.

Adverse effects of air pollution on health are also not being sufficiently communicated to patients and their carers by medical and nursing professionals, he added.

It comes after Mr Barlow ruled in a second inquest last year that air pollution was the cause of Ella‘s death – the first time such a recording has been made in the UK.

Ella died in February 2013, following a fatal asthma attack, having endured constant seizures and almost 30 hospital visits in the three years before.

A first inquest ruling from 2014, which concluded she died of acute respiratory failure, was quashed by the High Court following new evidence about the dangerous levels of air pollution close to her home.

Ella had lived 25 metres from the South Circular Road in Lewisham, southeast London – one of the capital’s busiest roads.

At the inquest into her death Mr Barlow said Ella’s mother Rosamund Kissi-Debrah had not been given information “about the health risks of air pollution and its potential to exacerbate asthma”.

“If she had been given this information, she would have taken steps which might have prevented Ella’s death,” he said.

A Prevention of Future Deaths report is mandatory when a coroner believes action should be taken to reduce the risk of further death.

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