Lawford Kidd's Blog

A man has been awarded what is thought to be substantial compensation after his wife died when her cancer was incorrectly diagnosed as an ear infection, reports the Mirror.

Kathleen Howe attended a hospital in Aberystwyth in 2010 after suffering dizzy spells, but was told by the consultant that she had an infection commonly known as ‘swimmer's ear’ and was given ear drops to treat it.

She attended the hospital four more times, but it was only after she was referred to a second hospital that she was diagnosed with cancer. She died in 2012.

The Scottish Parliament has published details of new measures that are designed to improve the safety and rights of patients.

These provisions are contained in a new Health Bill, which includes measures to create a statutory Duty of Candour that would apply to all health and social care organisations.

This would place a duty on organisations to be open when a patient has suffered unintended harm during a period of treatment or care. The Bill also provides for support for all involved, and training for any staff involved in responding to an incident.

An 11-year-old boy has been awarded compensation amounting to around £13 million for brain damage he sustained at his birth, reports the BBC.

The boy was born at Walsall Manor Hospital, West Midlands, but suffered abnormally low sugar levels after his birth that medical staff reportedly failed to treat.

As a result of this failing, the boy sustained serious brain damage and his brain will apparently never develop beyond that of a six-year-old. He will never be able to work and will be reliant on care for the rest of his life.

A man who suffered severe brain damage as a baby as a result of an error by medical staff has been awarded compensation amounting to £7.3 million, reports the Daily Mail.

Maternity staff at Luton and Dunstable Hospital failed to give him a vitamin K injection after his birth. The injection is routinely given to new born babies to help reduce the risk of internal bleeding.

He suffered a brain haemorrhage three months later, causing brain damage that left him with severe physical and cognitive disabilities and reliant on 24-hour care.

The UK Parliament’s Public Administration Select Committee (PASC) has published a report calling for a new national independent patient safety investigation body to be established in England.

According to the Secretary of State for Health, there are an estimated 12,000 avoidable hospital deaths every year, and more than 10,000 serious incidents are reported to NHS England annually. There were 338 recorded "never events" (such as wrong site surgery) in 2013-14 and NHS England received 174,872 written complaints. The NHS Litigation Authority’s latest estimate of clinical negligence liabilities is apparently £26.1 billion.

The huge numbers involved in the overall work of the NHS—15.8 million admissions to hospitals and 19.2 million A&E attendances in England the year to November 2014—put those figures in context, but PASC says that the overwhelming response received to its inquiry is an indication of the devastating impact of clinical failures when things do go wrong.