AN 11-day-old baby died from an undiagnosed heart condition, less than six months before a new test that could have detected it was introduced at York Hospital.

An inquest was told that Tommy Marshall John McKellar died in February 2015, just days after being released from the hospital following a healthy birth, and despite his parents' concerns over his health.

Natasha Pye and Andrew McKellar said their baby's skin often appeared blue and occasionally purple, and they had asked midwives and hospital staff during their post-natal hospital stay and at follow-up appointments whether the discolouration was normal.

They said they were advised Tommy's colour was likely due to him being cold or from bruising during his birth but a post mortem discovered he had a birth defect known as transposition of the great arteries, meaning his arteries were the wrong way round.

This caused oxygen-poor blood to flow around the body and back to the heart, while oxygen-rich blood flowed from the heart to the lungs and back again.

Ms Pye said she was allowed to go home from hospital seven hours after giving birth, without seeing a paediatrician, who was busy on the children's ward, with follow-up checks to be done by her GP the following day. "I was quite happy to go home as he was feeding, he'd attached well, and seemed content."

On the evening of February 1, 2015, she noticed Tommy was not breathing. She phoned emergency services while Mr McKellar performed CPR, and paramedics continued CPR on the way to hospital, but he died later that night.

The inquest heard that one of the most effective ways of detecting Tommy's condition was to monitor oxygen saturation levels and this had been introduced at York Hospital since his death, with the condition being picked up in two babies as a result.

A hospital spokeswoman told The Press that all babies born there had had oxygen saturation checks since July 2015, when it became one of the UK units chosen to take part in a national pilot study of the feasibility and effectiveness of the screening.

"We have since continued this screening beyond the end date of the pilot (in December), " she said.

"In our experience, this screening has been successful with several babies found to have conditions that are difficult to detect on examination alone." She added that the hospital wished to offer its sincere sympathies to the family for their loss.

York senior acting coroner Jonathan Leach said he had 'thought long and hard' as to whether medical staff should have recognised Tommy's heart condition and referred him to a paediatrician, and concluded the condition had not presented in such a way that they should. He concluded Tommy died from natural causes.