Inquest to examine if student's meningitis death was preventable

A jury will hear an inquest into the death of 18-year-old Bournemouth University student Megan Draper, who died from meningitis in October 2025, to determine if her death was preventable. The student, from Pontypool in South Wales, developed symptoms including a headache, stomach pain, and a rash before being sent home from Royal Bournemouth Hospital.

During a pre-inquest review hearing in Bournemouth, coroner Brendan Allen stated that a jury must hear the full inquest because Ms. Draper died of a "notifiable" disease. Allen noted that it is legally mandatory to have a jury when there is reason to suspect death resulted from a notifiable disease, and he was satisfied this applied in Ms. Draper's case.

The scope of the inquest will encompass Ms. Draper's interactions with the NHS 111 service, the triage process at Royal Bournemouth Hospital, her out-of-hours treatment, and her subsequent admission to Southmead Hospital in Bristol. The coroner has requested a statement from Dorset Healthcare University NHS Foundation Trust, which manages the NHS 111 service in the area, regarding Ms. Draper's call and the service's handling procedures.

The inquest has a provisional start date of July 19, 2027. Ms. Draper died five weeks into her physiotherapy course after contracting Meningitis B (MenB). Her parents, Lee and Helen Draper, have suggested that the MenACWY vaccine their daughter received in school may have misled them, as it does not protect against MenB.

The MenB vaccine became available on the NHS for babies in 2015. The jab protects against the bacteria responsible for 83% of meningitis cases in the UK but offers protection for only a few years. Ms. Draper was vaccinated against meningitis A, C, W, and Y at age 14, but her parents were unaware of a separate vaccination for MenB.

Her mother recounted that they assumed the vaccine covered all strains and were unaware it did not. A university checklist for students advised them to ensure vaccinations were up to date.

On October 24, 2025, Ms. Draper called her parents to say she felt lethargic. By the following day, her symptoms had worsened to include a headache, stomach pain, and a spreading rash, prompting her parents to urge her to go to the hospital. Despite these symptoms, she was sent home from Royal Bournemouth Hospital.

Concerned, her parents drove from South Wales to be with their daughter and took her back to the hospital, suspecting meningitis. However, they state they were told by a doctor on two separate occasions that it was not meningitis but a virus, and she needed rest and fluids. Her condition rapidly deteriorated on the drive back to Wales, leading to a loss of mobility in her legs. Her parents then took her to the nearest A&E at Southmead Hospital in Bristol, where she was placed in a medically induced coma. She passed away four days later, on October 29, 2025, leaving behind her parents and younger brother, James.