An eight-week-old baby died after “a catalogue of failings” in his treatment at a children’s hospital, which then tried to “deceive” his parents about his death, an official inquiry has found. Doctors failed to spot that Ben Condon was suffering from a deadly bacterial infection and did not give him antibiotics until an hour before he died, the NHS ombudsman said. “We found that Ben and his family suffered serious injustice in consequence of the failings we found in his care and treatment,” the parliamentary and health service ombudsman said in a report that contained damning criticisms of Bristol Children’s hospital. The errors were all “lost opportunities” to help Ben recover from his illness and so increased the risk of him dying. Ben was born very prematurely, at just 29 weeks, in Bristol’s Southmead hospital on 17 February 2015. He went home after six weeks in intensive care but ended up in Weston general hospital in Weston-super-Mare on 11 April with a cough. He transferred on the same day to Bristol Children’s hospital, where doctors diagnosed human metapneumovirus, a respiratory infection caused by a virus. He suffered two cardiac arrests on 17 April and died that day. In a scathing verdict on the hospital’s treatment of Ben, the ombudsman said doctors and nurses ignored his parents’ concerns about their son’s low temperature, did not test him for a bacterial infection as often as they should have, and did not give him the treatment he needed on 17 April 2015 once they realised how unwell he was. Doctors and nurses did not tell Ben’s parents, Allyn and Jenny, how severely ill he was, and doctors did not reveal that he had a bacterial infection or had received antibiotics until seven weeks after he died. The Condons have accused the trust of a “cover-up” of the circumstances of Ben’s death. The ombudsman’s report said there was not enough evidence to support that claim, but did find evidence of deliberate deceit. It concluded that: “We agree with Mr and Mrs Condon that the trust has failed to be open and honest with them about the events surrounding Ben’s death. It has done this to such a degree that it could be seen, as Mr Condon has, as a deliberate attempt to deceive.” Allyn Condon said: “Reading the report makes us realise just how badly Ben was treated and how atrociously we, as his parents, were dealt with. “The trust waited for seven weeks to tell us Ben had a bacterial infection. By this time we had already cremated our lovely little boy. They took away our opportunity to have a postmortem so we would know the truth.” University Hospitals Bristol NHS trust, which runs the hospital, apologised in 2017 for mistakes it made. On Monday its chief executive, Robert Woolley, reiterated its apology “for failings that were made in Ben’s care and our communication with his family”. Ben’s parents are seeking to have the high court annul an inquest into their son’s death, held in 2016, which resulted in a narrative verdict, after doctors from the trust maintained that Ben’s bacterial infection and the treatment of it were not relevant to his death. Mary Smith, the Condon family’s lawyer, said the “duty of candour”, introduced after the Mid-Staffs hospital scandal, obliges hospital staff to be open and honest with patients and that, in this instance, this appeared not to have occurred.