When some kids step into the room, it gets brighter immediately away. One of them was Lila Marsland, who was five years old, full of life, quick to laugh, and well loved.
She was just starting school and was still on a Christmas high, proudly showing off her new bike. People should have thought of her as someone who was always happy.
Instead, she became known for a horrible cause that no child should ever have to go through: medical neglect that could have been averted.
Throwing up and pain in the neck
On December 27, 2023, Lila and her family went for a walk at the picturesque Dovestone Reservoir in Greater Manchester. What was supposed to be a nice trip quickly turned into a nightmare. She began to declare that she felt a headache. On the way back to the car, she threw up. Her symptoms got worse later that day. She was fatigued and her neck hurt.
Her mother, Rachael Mincherton, who is 36 years old, was immediately frightened. She was a district nurse at the Tameside General facility, which is where she took Lila. She believed it was worse than a virus.
Rachael said she was afraid about meningitis because youngsters don’t normally complain about neck pain for no reason. She couldn’t look away.
Lila was discharged home from the hospital just after 2:30 a.m. because they thought she might have tonsillitis. She had already seen a nurse practitioner, a junior doctor, and a senior pediatric registrar. She claimed she trusted them. She worked with them. She never thought they would be wrong.
“I felt better after talking to them,” Rachael told the BBC. “She had a lot of infections before this, and she always got the best care. I used to work at that hospital. When you work with someone, you don’t really not trust them.
The next morning, that trust was gone.
“I knew she had been dead for a long time.”
At 9 a.m. on December 28, Rachael discovered Lila in bed and she wasn’t responding.
She called 999, started CPR, and waited for the ambulance to arrive. But it was too late. She had just sent her daughter home when she died.
Rachael said, “I knew she had been dead for a long time.” “The paramedics got there in five minutes, but they couldn’t do anything.”
A post-mortem showed that Lila had pneumococcal meningitis, which Rachael had been afraid of from the beginning.
The inquest that followed painted a horrible picture of missed opportunities and issues with the system. The jury decided that Lila’s death might have been avoided if she had been neglected.
The ruling noted, “Lila would not have died if she had been taken to the hospital and given broad-spectrum antibiotics within the first hour of being triaged.”
It took 17 months for Darren Marsland, Rachael and Lila’s father, to get answers. The word they had been dreading became official when the inquest finally ended: neglect.
The Manchester Evening News says that Rachael said outside the courthouse, “A parent should never have to hear the word ‘neglect.'” “We will have to live with the terrible loss of our daughter for the rest of our lives.”
“We’ve never been sorry.”
What makes it even harder? There was no apology, at least not right away.
Rachael told the BBC in June 2025, “We’ve never gotten an apology.” “We saw it on the news for the first time after the inquest.”
The hospital trust acknowledged in a statement that it had “missed opportunities” and apologized in general. It stated it agreed with what the coroner said and would try to make treatment better.
But Lila’s family will never be able to change what happened.
Rachael thought back, “She was always so happy.” “She made everyone laugh.” She was simply
a girl who is one of a kind.
Ava, her big sister, cared for her a lot. They were always with each other.
Rachael said, “She just loved her life and was a great kid to raise.” “She loved going to school and playing outside with her friends.”
More than $24,000
Instead of putting her to school, the Marslands are now starting a charity in her name.
They founded Lila’s Light, a foundation that offers “bereavement bags” to kids whose siblings have died. This is a simple technique to help youngsters deal with their loss in a world that doesn’t always care how they’re doing.
Darren said, “The parents can see how sad they are by what they are writing and drawing.” “Many kids don’t say anything, but they write it down.”
They have handed the bags to more than 15 hospitals and made more than $24,000. Darren and his friends even climbed Ben Nevis in memory of Lila.
But what they really want, more than change or information, is their daughter back.
Rachael said, “You’re just getting by.” “There are all the ‘what-ifs.'” What if we had taken her to a different hospital? There are many different varieties.
People should think of Lila Marsland as someone who valued life, not as someone who lost something. She should still be here, playing with her sister, riding her bike, and making every room she stepped into brighter.
People are using her name as a rallying cry, not because she was famous, but because she shouldn’t have had to be.