E-cigarettes: Primary school age children are ending up in hospital due to excessive vaping
Boys and girls of primary school age are becoming so ill from vaping they are ending up in hospital, a Sky News investigation can reveal.
Figures from NHS England show there were 15 cases where children aged nine or under needed to be admitted in the year to April, up from 12 last year and two the year before that.
Professor Andy Bush, a paediatric chest physician at the Royal Brompton Hospital in west London, says he’s “absolutely horrified” by the statistics.
“Young children are being exposed to substances of addiction, substances that are toxic and some of the toxicity is not known,” he said.
“It’s a jungle… we just do not know what is in most of these things.
“If a teenager starts smoking cigarettes, probably the worst that’s going to happen to them is they’re going to be sick and throw up behind the bike shed.
“The acute use of e-cigarettes can put them in hospital, can put them in intensive care, things like lung bleeding, lung collapse and air leak, the lungs filling up with fat.”
For many smokers, vaping has been the key to quitting what is the biggest preventable cause of death.
Rosey Christoffersen died after both her lungs collapsed
But Rachel Howe is convinced it’s what killed her 18-year-old daughter, Rosey Christoffersen in February 2015, six months after she began vaping heavily.
“She was supposed to call me at 5.30pm but she didn’t call,” she said.
“I rang her phone and one of the ambulance crew answered and said we’re with your daughter, we’re working on her. She’d come out of work and collapsed.”
Rosey had suffered a heart attack, but what had caused it was the sudden collapse of both her lungs – a bilateral pneumothorax.
Her brain was starved of oxygen and two days later it was made clear she would not survive.
Rachel Howe is convinced vaping killed her daughter
Rachel, from the Wirral, was told Rosey’s lungs were “just a mass of holes and blisters called blebs”.
“To be honest, there was just a lot of stunned silence at the hospital,” she said.
Rosey had been to the doctors a number of times with chest pain in the months before her death but as a fit and active footballer it was put down to a pulled muscle.
“I was finding bottles and bottles of the empty liquid,” said Rachel.
“She constantly had it in her mouth. And I kept saying to her, you know, you wouldn’t smoke that much… why are you vaping that much?”
No post-mortem was carried out, no official link was made, but Rachel says doctors told her vaping was “probably” to blame.
Professor Andy Bush
Professor Bush goes further than that, adding he has never seen double lung collapse in a fit, young person.
“I think that mother is right,” he said.
“I cannot think of any other explanation that would cover the facts.”
It’s illegal to sell vapes to under-18s and the boxes are clearly labelled.
But it’s easy to see why certain products would appeal to children.
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They’re brightly coloured, flavoured like fruit or sweets, and at around £5 each for a disposable vape, cheap.
Some look like make-up, others like pens.
Rosey had been to the doctors a number of times with chest pain but as an active footballer it was put down to a pulled muscle
The government recently announced it would be clamping down on rogue firms unlawfully targeting teens with advertising on platforms like TikTok.
“Illicit vape enforcement squads” are also being set up at a cost of £3m to uncover the traders selling to young people.
In total, 40 young people aged up to 19 were admitted to hospital in the past year from vaping.
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What are the dangers of vaping?
But John Dunne, from the UK Vaping Industry Association, says “the statistics would not exist if children were not getting their hands on vapes”.
“Every year according to the NHS some 76,000 people die from smoking, whereas there has not been one officially confirmed report of a death from vaping even though the category has been available in the UK for around the last 15 years,” he said.
“The fundamental issue that needs urgently addressing is the woeful level of enforcement of vaping age regulations across the UK.
“Whilst we see recent measures announced by the government as a step in the right direction to tackle youth vaping… much more needs to be done to support Trading Standards in their efforts to tackle rogue traders and cut off the source of supply of vapes to minors.”
He wants on-the-spot fines of £10,000 to be introduced for those caught selling to young people.
Rachel Howe and Rosey Christoffersen
Rosey was due to start a new job as a trainee hairdresser a couple of days after collapsing.
Instead that day she was being kept alive so her organs could be donated, helping eight other people.
Rachel wants more research to be done into the impact vaping has on young people.
She’s made it her mission to tell her daughter’s story to any young people she sees vaping, or who come into the shop she works in asking for them.
The impact on young lungs is only just emerging, but she knows there’s too much at stake to ignore the risks.
One of the country’s leading hospitals has been accused of covering up concerns about a surgeon made a decade before she was eventually suspended.
Kuldeep Stohr was suspended from Addenbrooke’s Hospital in January this year after a review found issues with some of her surgeries – with the Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (CUH) later saying it was reviewing the care of 800 patients.
A joint investigation by Sky News and The Sunday Times found the trust may have downplayed previous concerns, with a report identifying issues with Ms Stohr back in 2016.
A senior source at the hospital said children were “severely permanently harmed”, and “some of the cases are horrendous”. They said the damage could have been avoided and told Sky News there was “the impression of a cover up”.
Kuldeep Stohr was suspended in January this year
In one case, a child injured in a car accident was left with a broken arm for 11 days after Ms Stohr failed to spot it.
Concerns were first raised in 2015, with the CUH commissioning an external expert to examine several of Ms Stohr’s patients and their treatment.
A letter shared between staff at the time – and seen by Sky News – says the trust was satisfied the report did not raise any concerns.
But a copy of the report, obtained by Sky News and The Sunday Times, shows it did identify “technical issues” with the surgeries of multiple patients.
Now questions are being asked about why the hospital didn’t act sooner.
Ms Stohr allegedly told Oliver’s family to leave his care “in the hands of God”
One patient, whose son was treated by the surgeon in 2018, says she is “angry” she was not listened to at the time after she raised concerns about Ms Stohr’s conduct.
Ms Stohr said: “I always strive to provide the highest standards of care to all my patients. I am cooperating fully with the trust investigation and it would not be appropriate to comment further at this time.”
Dr Susan Broster, chief medical officer at Cambridge University Hospitals said the trust “apologise unreservedly to all the patients and families we have let down”.
She added that patients who were considered in the 2016 report also form part of the latest clinical review: “We have spoken to those patients and families and offered to meet them in person.”
It is not clear if those patients were contacted at the time of the first report.
‘Some of the cases are horrendous’
A source at the hospital said the damage was “all avoidable” while “the lives of children and families have been ruined”.
“Stohr destroyed people’s lives by performing very poor surgery. She destroyed some hip joints,” they said.
The confidential report was written in 2016
But they said staff felt they were “bullied and intimidated when they tried to raise concerns”, and were told the initial 2016 report showed no issues with Ms Stohr.
“I consider that these cases have been properly investigated and am reassured that there is no concern about Kuldeep’s practice,” said a letter sent to staff from the trust in 2016.
“I have the impression there has been a cover up,” the source told Sky News.
Dr Broster, from the CUH, said the trust had commissioned Verita, a specialist investigations company, to carry out an independent investigation to see if issues could have been addressed sooner – but added that it would be inappropriate to comment further while the review was ongoing.
She said the trust would publish the findings of the Verita report and said it was “committed to implementing the findings and recommendations in full”, with the initial findings expected by the autumn.
‘Technical errors’: What the 2016 report said
The doctor who authored the 2016 report wrote he had “some anxieties about the technical aspects” of one patient’s operation.
He highlighted “technical error[s]” on several other operations.
The report author wrote he had “some anxieties” about one surgery
Some patients were “difficult cases” where “decision making was broadly correct”, and issues were not found with each one.
On one patient, the report said an issue that arose was a “known complication and does not indicate poor care. These were difficult hips”.
The report also cited a “divided apartment of paediatric orthopaedics” in which “discussion of difficult cases and mutual support does not exist”.
But the report did say Ms Stohr did not always order CT scans after operations took place.
It said all cases of DDH (Developmental Dysplasia of the Hip) surgery should have an MRI or CT scan after the operation had been completed.
The report found “issues” with some of the surgeries
Two reports, nine years apart
Ms Stohr was suspended this year with a 2025 report highlighting similar concerns, including around post-op imaging.
The 2025 findings said one procedure – a pelvic osteotomy, where the pelvic bone is cut and reshaped to improve the alignment of the hip joint – was one “Ms Stohr appears to find difficult”.
It also raised concerns that Ms Stohr “frequently operates on her own”, or with more junior members of staff.
“There have clearly been cases when technical issues arose during surgery where the presence of a consultant colleague may have been helpful,” the latest report said.
It also said the lack of imaging at the end of procedures “is inexplicable and not the standard of care”.
Catherine Slattery, senior associate at Irwin Mitchell who is representing some of the affected families, said both reports showed “similar themes”.
“Clearly things have got much worse in 2025. So, the question is, what could have been done in 2016 to have prevented this from happening?” she said.
Catherine Slattery is representing a number of families affected
Issues, such as Ms Stohr not ordering bone scans, were “very strange”, she added.
“But if we take the individual out, why has nobody else noticed that every other surgeon in the team has been ordering scans, but one person hasn’t?”
But she said the trust has “been playing catch up”: “[It] only seems to be taking steps when they are being prompted to do so by people like me, or journalists, or other people asking difficult questions – or even the local MP having to ask difficult questions.”
‘Leave it in the hands of God’
Seven-year-old Oliver Muhlhausen has constant foot pain – and it’s getting worse.
He was born with a severe deformity which Ms Stohr said didn’t need to be operated on.
Oliver has been left in constant agony after Ms Stohr refused to operate on him
Oliver was seen by the specialist surgeon in 2018, but his mother, Nicola, claims she was told: “There is no operation within my remits or that I can or am willing to perform, go away and leave it in the hands of God.”
The family eventually sought a second opinion, moving to be treated at a different hospital, but said Oliver has been left in “constant agony”.
“I’ve been told that if she had done something sooner or even attempted to do something sooner then he probably would have stood a bit better chance than what he’s currently going through.”
Nicola said she “upset and angry” at not being listened to, especially considering concerns were raised internally two years before her son became a patient of Ms Stohr.
“I cannot understand why something was not done sooner, because clearly there were issues,” she said, adding that hospital staff “need to be held accountable”.
Oliver and his mother, Nicola
She filed a formal complaint in 2019 but said this was “brushed under the carpet”.
In response to her complaint at the time, the trust said Ms Stohr “would like to apologise unreservedly for her failures of clear communication”.
‘Life could be different now’
Ellise Kingsley is now 24 and cannot walk for long periods of time – she is left in daily pain and distress.
She is not one of the 800 cases currently being examined by the CUH but was operated on by Ms Stohr in 2012 and 2016.
She said, had the 2016 report been acted on, life could be very different for her now.
“It is upsetting to think that I could have had a completely different lifestyle as such in the last ten years,” she said.
Ellise Kingsley was operated on by Ms Stohr twice
“I wouldn’t have had to even think about my foot now at 24.
“It stresses me out actually to think that there was a chance for change, but change didn’t happen.”
Pippa Heylings, MP for South Cambridgeshire, said it was an “anxious and distressing time for all involved”, and called on Addenbrooke’s Hospital to be “open and transparent” as well as independent.
She said: “The hospital cannot be seen to be marking its own homework. It is crucial for all to come forward with relevant information and evidence including whistleblowers with no fear of consequence or retaliation.”
The CUH said it has set up a dedicated Patient and Family Liaison Team, and encourages anyone concerned about their care to call the dedicated helpline on 0808 175 6331 or email CUH.helpline@nhs.net.
The government is set to roll out sweeping reforms to the immigration system.
The skilled visa threshold will be raised to require a graduate qualification and a higher salary threshold, under plans outlined in an immigration white paper that will be presented in parliament on Monday.
For jobs below this level, access to the immigration system will be “time-limited” and only granted if there are shortages “critical to the industrial strategy”.
Strategies to increase domestic skills and recruitment would also need to be drawn up, with a labour market evidence group set to be established to identify sectors “overly reliant on overseas labour”.
Under the plans to reduce net migration to the UK, employers will be told that they must train workers in the UK rather than turn to immigration to solve labour shortages.
Net migration – the difference between the number of people immigrating and emigrating to a country – soared when the UK left the EU in January 2020.
It reached 903,000 in the year to June 2023 before falling to 728,000 in mid-2024.
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Has Labour tackled migration?
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has blamed overseas recruitment for the rise in net migration over the last four years after Labour inherited a “failed” immigration system from the previous government.
“Migration must be properly controlled and managed so the system is fair,” Ms Cooper said.
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Lack of UK training ‘big driver of net migration’ says Ms Cooper
Ms Cooper added: “Overseas recruitment soared at the same time as big increases in the number of people not working or in education here in the UK.
“The last government lost control of the immigration system and there was no proper plan to tackle skills shortages here at home.
“Under our Plan for Change, we are taking decisive action to restore control and order to the immigration system, raise domestic training and skills, and bring down net migration while promoting economic growth.”
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Meanwhile, the Conservatives will try to force a vote in parliament on capping the number of non-visitor visas that can be issued.
The party is trying to amend the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, which if accepted would give the government the power to cap visas in line with the country’s needs, and allow them to be revoked if the limit is exceeded.
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Is UK net migration falling or rising?
The Tories are also behind a separate amendment to the same bill which would look to disapply the Human Rights Act in asylum and deportation cases.
Responding to the government’s white paper, shadow home secretary Chris Philp said “fixing Britain’s migration crisis requires a new radical approach. Labour had the opportunity to do this and have failed”.
He added: “If Labour were serious about immigration, they’d back our binding immigration cap and back our plan to repeal the entire Human Rights Act from immigration matters. But they have got no grip, no guts and no plan.”
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, shadow home secretary Chris Philp and Reform UK deputy leader Richard Tice will be among the guests on Sky News’ Trevor Phillips on Sunday show from 8.30am today.
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