AN elderly West Somerset man died from a rare complication caused by antibiotics he was prescribed after visiting his GP with concerns about a rash on his body.

Retired factory worker David Harrison, aged 78, of Quarry Close, Alcombe, Minehead, originally sought help from his doctor for ‘a large rash on his torso’ on April 18 of last year.

Somerset assistant coroner Vanessa McKinlay heard how Mr Harrison was prescribed the antibiotic flucloxacillin, which at first appeared to be helping with his rash.

However, three weeks later, on May 10, Mr Harrison was found to be suffering from diarrhoea caused by a clostridium difficile bacterial infection, commonly referred to as ‘C. diff’, a type of bacteria which can cause a bowel infection.

He was then prescribed another antibiotic, vancomycin, but he developed jaundice and was admitted to Musgrove Park Hospital, in Taunton.

Ms McKinlay said investigations by the medical team treating Mr Harrison ‘did not show a likely viral, obstructive, or auto immune cause’ for the jaundice.

She said: “Mr Harrison’s treating team considered the likely cause was a liver injury caused by one of the recent antibiotics, with a reaction to flucloxacillin being the more likely cause.”

Mr Harrison could not recover from his condition, and the hospital discharged to him to Eastleigh Care Home, since renamed Minehead Nursing and Residential Care Home, in Periton Road, Minehead, where he died on July 26 last year.

Ms McKinlay, who concluded inquest proceedings which had opened in July of last year in the Old Municipal Buildings, in Corporation Street, Taunton, said: “Mr Harrison died as a result of a liver injury which was a rare complication of recent antibiotic therapy.”

She recorded the two medical causes for the death of Mr Harrison as ‘cholestatic jaundice’ and ‘flucloxacillin induced liver injury’.