Nelsons represented Mr G and his sisters in a claim against Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust for the inappropriate treatment of bilateral acute subdural haematomas. This led to the death of their father, which would otherwise not have occurred.
Mr G was admitted to hospital with a head injury following a fall. The CT scan showed bilateral acute subdural haematomas and this was documented in the records. However, neither Mr G nor his records were reviewed prior to him being prescribed warfarin and wrongly discharged. The prescription of warfarin was wholly inappropriate and exacerbated the bleed. Mr G returned to his nursing home but his condition deteriorated over the next two days and he was readmitted to hospital. Sadly he died shortly after.
The Trust undertook a Serious Untoward Incident Investigation and the report identified numerous failings in Mr G’s care. An Inquest was held. HM Coroner found that there had been a ‘catalogue of failings’ and that ‘anything that could have gone wrong, did go wrong’. She described the care that Mr G received as ‘a total travesty so far as the family are concerned’.
In her summing up, the Coroner also expressed the view that by the time Mr G began to complain of nausea and headache, it would have been ‘basic common sense’ to call an ambulance, given the history of recent head injury. She found that for only one check to have been done by nursing home staff at 08:30 was ‘unfortunate, regrettable and a huge oversight’ on the part of the nursing home.
The verdict recorded on the inquisition was simply ‘neglect’, the Coroner’s view being that the extreme circumstances of the case warranted this verdict. This unusual result serves as a reminder to those representing families not to hesitate to seek such a verdict in appropriate cases.
Baishali Majumdar was able to settle the clinical negligence claim for a four figure sum. Deirdre Malone of Garden Court Chambers represented the family at the Inquest. In light of the rare ‘Neglect’ verdict, the case was featured in the February 2012 edition of the national publication Inquest Magazine. Published three times a year, Inquest Law is a vital resource for anyone working on the investigation of sudden deaths. Inquest Law is distributed widely amongst lawyers, coroners, academics and policy makers.
Inquest Law is produced by the INQUEST charity which provides a free advice service to bereaved people on contentious deaths and their investigation with a particular focus on deaths in custody. Their specialist casework service offers in-depth advice and support to any person bereaved through a death in state detention or involving state agents. This includes a death in prison, in police custody or following police contact, and in psychiatric or immigration detention. For further information or advice please visit the INQUEST website or contact a member of Nelsons' Clinical Negligence team.
Read more about the clinical negligence cases that Nelsons handled by visiting our Clinical Negligence case studies page.
