The family of a footballer who died after rupturing his Achilles tendon during a game is suing a hospital for failing to spot his life was in danger.

Michael Osborne, 34, died less than three weeks after he was first seen at Whipps Cross Hospital in Leytonstone in September 2017.

Coroner for the eastern district of London, Ms Nadia Persaud, concluded at an inquest this week that the hospital’s failure to give Mr Osborne blood-thinning medication contributed to his death on September 30.

His cause of death was recorded as a blood clot in his lungs, with the deep vein thrombosis and his ruptured left Achilles tendon as contributory factors.

She said his life would likely have been saved had he been offered the medication from any point after suffering his injury on September 11 to September 28 – a 17 day period in which he was seen on at least five occasions.

Ms Osborne’s family has hit out at Barts Health NHS Trust for disputing the number of times Mr Osborne attended the hospital and had to resort to using social media images and conversations to prove several visits.

Mr Osborne’s sister, Patricia Riley, who works as an NHS practice improvement lead at a clinical commissioning group (CCG), said she was “disgusted” by the approach of Barts Health NHS Trust.

The 44-year-old said: “The fact that the hospital failed to make the relevant, most basic assessments which would have saved my brother losing his life is bad enough, but what has really added to the devastation and pains me has been the way they have responded after his death.

“Barts Health NHS Trust talks about transparency and honesty, but when Michael died they tried to suggest he had only been there three times, on the day of his injury, the day after and then seven days later in the fracture clinic.

“We had to prove when he was there on more occasions and we did so by looking back though the pictures and videos he had taken and shared via social media, which showed him in Whipps Cross.

“How can a hospital’s record keeping be so poor? They initially said they had no record of him being seen numerous times or when he was in the plaster room three days before he died. How can this be right?”

Ms Riley is questioning how the trust could have cared for her brother effectively given that it did not seem to keep any records of a number of his visits and called it “absurd and disgusting”.

She said Mr Osborne had told her staff at Whipps had treated him “like he was a hypochondriac” after he returned to the hospital complaining of pain.

“I want serious questions to be asked as to how such basic mistakes can be made which cost people their lives,” added Ms Riley.

“It’s appalling that we had to provide photographic evidence and social media chats before the hospital retracted and confirmed that Mike attended more times that they initially claimed.”

On his first visit to Whipps, Mr Osborne was put in a plaster cast before being discharged with pain relief medication and advised to rest.

An x-ray of his left ankle revealed a 7mm tear the next day, but specialists decided against operating and he was told to attend the fracture clinic the following week.

At that visit he was told he would need a further three weeks in a cast and a period of time wearing a special boot, by which time he should be able to walk again.

However, as he was suffering continuing pain, Mr Osborne returned to hospital on a number of occasions, and called to express concern that something more serious was wrong.

His final visit was three days before his death, when he had his cast changed – something that Barts only finally admitted in April, seven months after he died.

Mr Osborne died on September 30 after collapsing in the back of a taxi.

Jodi Newton, a lawyer representing Mr Osborne’s family, said she has “huge concerns” over the hospital’s recording of patient info which “paints a picture of scratchy, un-coordinated medical care”.

A spokesperson at Barts Health NHS Trust said:

“We are deeply sorry for failings in the care we provided to Mr Osborne, and send our sincere condolences to his family. As a result of his death we are reviewing our policy for assessing the risk of blood clotting among patients with a leg in a cast. This will now be updated in line with the NICE guidelines for risk assessing outpatients which came out this year.”