AN emergency doctor has admitted he should have consulted poisons specialists sooner when treating a vulnerable 21-year-old woman who died after overdosing on diet pills.

Beth Shipsey suffered a seizure before going into cardiac arrest on February 15 last year in the A&E department at Worcestershire Royal Hospital (WRH), having taken 2,4 Dinitrophenol, known as DNP.

Dr Alireza Niroumand told a hearing at Worcestershire Coroner’s Court today he should have done more to understand a drug he had “never seen before”.

Following the overdose, Miss Shipsey was taken to hospital from her home in Warndon Villages, Worcester, by ambulance to the hospital arriving at about 5.20pm.

The inquest heard Miss Shipsey had overdosed around 15 times in just a few months before her death.

Dr Niroumand, who started his 10-hour shift in the emergency department at 6pm, said Miss Shipsey was at the end of a corridor of trolleys.

“It was one of the busiest days I have seen at Worcester [A&E], of the few days that I had been working there,” he admitted.

Prior to first speaking to the patient, who was sitting on a trolley, with her father Doug next to her, he was informed she had overdosed on around 30 DNP tablets.

He was then handed documents by a nurse printed off from TOXBASE – the system consulted by doctors to understand the effects of and treatment needed regarding an unfamiliar drug.

Dr Niroumand said: “The name of that medication was completely unfamiliar to me. I did not read [the documents] completely at that point. I wanted to see the patient.”

He added: “At this point she was in a stable condition.”

Blood and Electrocardiography (ECP) tests came back “fairly normal” and he said Miss Shipsey told him she had taken the drugs between three and four o’clock that afternoon.

Having then consulted TOXBASE, Dr Niroumand found symptoms of a DNP overdose could take up to four hours to appear, but rather than consult poisons specialists, he ordered the patient be monitored.

During Dr Niroumand’s evidence, coroner Geraint Williams asked him: “When you do not know the drug, surely it is even more important to get specialist advice?”

Dr Niroumand said: “I have a big question mark in my head, how much had she taken of this medication?” he said, having told colleagues to “keep her somewhere safe and observe her” for “any sign of change”.

“Although the numbers were normal, I was not 100 per cent happy,” he added, but he had numerous other patients to attend to.

Michael Walsh, representing Miss Shipsey's parents, Doug and Carole said he did not make the call to poison specialists until 8.50pm.

“It should've happened several hours earlier,” said Mr Walsh. “Do you agree with that?”

Dr Niroumand answered: “Yes.”

Miss Shipsey was moved into a resuscitation room soon after the doctor first spoke to her before being moved to a high care unit.

The unit was “one of the best places [for the patient] but it was not the resuscitation room,” said Dr Niroumand.

He said the decision to move the patient from the resuscitation room was common procedure as she was stable and other patients needed treating there.

But, a couple of hours later, with her condition deteriorating, he wanted to move her back but “there was no way at all for that transfer” due to how busy the department was.

Dr Niroumand said Miss Shipsey’s heart rate soared to a “sky high” rate on her last reading, while she was also sweating and flushed.

He ordered colleagues to “rush this patient to the resuscitation room. Go straight away.”

He put in a call to poison specialists, telling them: “‘I have got someone in here who is deteriorating fairly rapidly.’”

“By the time they called back, unfortunately she had already died,” he said.

At the time of her admission she was on home leave from a psychiatric ward at Worcester’s Elgar Unit.

Miss Shipsey had been diagnosed with an emotionally unstable personality disorder in January 2016, having been raped by her ex-boyfriend Barry Finch, 22.

She also had an eating disorder and Post Traumatic Stress Disorders, buying the diet pills online from the Ukraine.

Dr Nirvana Chandrappa, a senior consultant psychiatrist from Worcestershire Health and Care, who also gave evidence at the hearing, said he did not believe Miss Shipsey was a suicide risk at the time of her death.

However, Dr Niroumand said he asked the patient on initial contact with her in the emergency department, “‘Did you want to kill yourself?’ She clearly said 'yes'.”

Mr Williams read out a social media message, Miss Shipsey had sent to a friend at 4.36pm on February 15, which included sad emoticons.

“I have just overdosed on DNP. I am petrified of telling anyone because it is like my 15th overdose,” she wrote.

Later, messaging another friend who told her to go to hospital, she said: “No, I don't want to. I will disappoint everyone. I am sure my body can handle it.”

The inquest continues Tuesday.