Lawford Kidd's Blog

A number of cases of compensation being awarded to patients who were the victims of medical negligence have been reported in the media recently.

One such case involved a teenage girl who has permanent nerve damage in her shoulder as a result of medical errors when she was born.

Courtney Webb was born at Liverpool Women’s Hospital in October 1999 but during labour her shoulders became stuck, reports the Liverpool Echo. At that point, a caesarean section would normally have been carried out, but medical staff instead decided to proceed with a natural birth.

Traffic education should become an integral part of the National Curriculum, in an effort to cut the numbers of young people killed and injured on UK roads, the Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM) has said.

The call ties in with a survey by the FIA (Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile), which found that only seven of 15 European countries had mandatory traffic education in schools.

Although the numbers of people killed and injured on UK roads have been steadily decreasing for many years, the rate of decrease has been slowing down recently.

The Royal Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland has been fined £100,000 following the death of a three-year-old boy at the Royal Highland Show at Ingliston in June 2008, reports the BBC.

Ben Craggs had been attending the show with his parents when he apparently grabbed hold of a rope between two bollards in one of the car parks at the showground. One of the bollards, which weighed 148kg, toppled over on top of him, causing severe head injuries. Ben was taken to hospital, but later died of his injuries.

A jury at Edinburgh Sheriff Court found that the Royal Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland, which had organised the Highland Show, was guilty of failing to ensure that the bollards were “provided and maintained in a condition and connected in a manner which did not present a risk of overturning,” reports the BBC.

An Edinburgh based pharmaceutical company has recently appeared in Edinburgh Sheriff Court, where it pled guilty to failing to ensure the health and safety of an employee who was crushed by a reversing lorry.

The incident occurred in September 2011, at the company’s premises on Wheatfield Road in Edinburgh. The employee in question was attempting to signal a reversing lorry into a loading bay. The driver did not see him as he was focused on another individual who was signalling the lorry in, and as a result the unseen employee was crushed between the lorry and the loading bay wall.

He was found to have suffered severe crush injuries to his head, face, and chest, but fortunately has since made a full recovery.

A woman who collapsed in north London but had to wait more than 100 minutes for an ambulance has been awarded around £5 million in compensation, the BBC has reported.

The 36-year-old, who was a genetic scientist, sustained brain damage as a result of the delay and now needs 24-hour care.

The delay occurred because her home had apparently been flagged as high risk, and therefore the responding ambulance crew were told to wait for a police escort before going into the property. No police officers were immediately available and therefore the ambulance crew continued to wait just a short distance from the property, despite 999 being phoned on two further occasions.