As soon as some kids walk in, the room gets brighter. Lila Marsland, who was five years old, full of life, quick to laugh, and well-loved, was one of them.
She had just started school and was still on a Christmas high, proudly showing off her new bike. People should have thought of her as a joyful person.
Instead, she became known for a horrible cause that no child should ever have to go through: medical neglect that could have been averted.
Neck pain and throwing up
On December 27, 2023, Lila and her family went for a walk at the lovely Dovestone Reservoir in Greater Manchester. What was supposed to be a pleasant day out quickly turned into a nightmare. She began to say that her head hurt. She threw up on the way back to the car. That day, her symptoms got worse. She got fatigued and her neck hurt.
Her mother, Rachael Mincherton, who is 36 years old, was frightened right away. She was a district nurse at Tameside General, the same place where she took Lila. She believed it was something worse than a virus.
Rachael had claimed she was afraid about meningitis because youngsters don’t normally complain about neck pain for no reason. She couldn’t look away from it.

Lila was sent home from the hospital just after 2:30 a.m. with a suspected case of tonsillitis, even though she had already seen a nurse practitioner, a junior doctor, and a senior pediatric registrar. She said she believed them. She worked with them. She never thought they were wrong.
Rachael told the BBC, “Talking to them made me feel better.” “She had a number of infections before this, and the care she got was usually fantastic. That was where I used to work. You don’t really not trust someone while you work with them.
That trust was gone by the next morning.
“I knew she had been dead for a long time.”
On December 28 at 9 a.m., Rachael found Lila in bed and she wasn’t waking up.
She called 999, started CPR, and waited for the ambulance to get there. But it was too late. She had just sent her daughter home when she passed away.
“I knew she had been dead for a long time,” Rachael said. “The paramedics got there in five minutes, but they couldn’t help.”
A post-mortem showed what Rachael had been afraid of from the beginning: Lila had pneumococcal meningitis, which killed her.
The inquest that came following provided a horrible picture of missed chances and issues with the system. The jury decided that Lila’s death may have been avoided if she had been neglected.

The jury said, “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.”
Darren Marsland, the father of Rachael and Lila, waited 17 months for answers. The word they had been dreading became official when the inquest came to an end: 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 deal with the terrible loss of our daughter for the rest of our lives.”
“We’ve never heard an apology.”
What makes it even harder? The apology didn’t come, at least not soon away.
Rachael said to the BBC in June 2025, “We’ve never gotten an apology.” “We saw it on the news for the first time after the inquest.”
In a statement, the hospital trust acknowledged it had “missed opportunities” and apologized in general. It stated it agreed with the coroner’s findings and would work to make care better.
But Lila’s family will never be the same again.
Rachael remembered, “She was always happy.” “She made everyone laugh.” She was simply
a one-of-a-kind girl.
Ava, her older sister, cared for her a lot. They were always with each other.
Rachael said, “She loved her life and was a great kid to raise.” “She liked going to school and playing outside with her friends.”
Got over $24,000
The Marslands are now starting a charity in her name instead of sending her to school.
They founded an organization called Lila’s Light that offers “bereavement bags” to brothers and sisters of youngsters who have died. This is a small method to help youngsters deal with their loss in a world that doesn’t always check in on them.

Darren said, “The parents can understand how sad they are by what they are writing and drawing.” “A lot of kids won’t say anything, but they’ll write it down.”
They have handed the bags to more than 15 hospitals and raised more than $24,000. Darren and his friends even climbed Ben Nevis in honor of Lila.
But what they really want, more than change or knowledge, is their daughter back.
“You’re just kind of getting by,” Rachael said. “There are all the ‘what-ifs.’ What would have happened if we had taken her to a different hospital? There are many different types.
People should remember Lila Marsland for how much she loved life, not for what she lost. She should still be here, riding her bike, playing with her sister, and making every room she walked 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.