Nursing Negligence Case Studies

• Our client underwent investigations under general anaesthetic at the hospital and on the evening of the operation, she woke up feeling nauseous but the sick bowl was not within her reach and so she tried to press the call buzzer to fetch a nurse to help her.

Unfortunately the call buzzer was not close enough to our client and when she reached out for it, she fell out of bed.

As a result of the fall, our client suffered from a headache, shoulder pain and shooting pains on the right side of her back and right leg and was prescribed morphine. She also suffered from decreased sensation over the right side of her back.

Our client was discharged home but was still suffering from the fall so attended her GP .The pain persisted and so our client was referred for physiotherapy.

Our client attended physiotherapy in respect of her back and right hip and leg pain but found that the exercises exacerbated her back pain. In addition, she developed numbness in her right leg which became unstable and occasionally gave way, causing her to fall.

As our client found the physiotherapy so painful, her physiotherapist referred her to the pain clinic at the hospital. She underwent treatment with the pain clinic, but this only eased the pain short-term.

Our client still has pain in her lower back, right leg and hip. This pain restricts her ability to carry out household chores and her mobility is very limited such that she can only walk for 10 minutes before needing to rest her right leg and she sometimes mobilises with the aid of crutches.

Our client was successful in her clinical negligence claim and recovered the sum of £7,500 by way of compensation.
 

• Our client underwent abdominal surgery, which went well and was returned to the ward after the operation.

Unfortunately, a patient with mental health difficulties was on this same ward. The nursing staff had observed and noted this patient wandering between beds on the ward, to approach patients and to take food and drink from other patients’ bedsides.
That evening, the patient with mental health difficulties was unaccompanied and unsupervised so she got into bed with our client and pressed on our client’s post-procedure abdominal wound.

Our client shouted for help and pressed her call buzzer repeatedly, at least 5 times, but no nurses came to her aid for several minutes during which time the other patient’s full weight was on our client’s abdominal wound.

Our client suffered with excruciating pain, delayed healing and worse scarring in the area leant on by the other patient.

Our client recovered the sum of £3,000 by way of compensation.

Do you have a potential medical negligence claim?

Please contact us for advice if you feel you have suffered any form of negligent medical/dental treatment. We have a specialist team of solicitors who are always happy to help. At Quality Solicitors Oliver & Co, we are unique in that the head of our Clinical Negligence department, Linda Schermer, is a qualified doctor as well as a qualified solicitor. We therefore benefit from in-house medical knowledge and are able to get to grips with your claim and locate any areas of negligent care quickly.

Our solicitors deal with a wide variety of medical claims including missed/delayed diagnosis claims, orthopaedic injuries, drug dispensing errors and claims against GPs. Our Liz Fry also has extensive experience with claims against dentists and our Kerry Bateman has had great success in pursuing claims involving poor nursing care.

With the assistance of our paralegal Lisa Thomas and our team secretary Corinna Phillips, we tend to work on a team basis and pool our legal and medical knowledge to offer the best service to our clients.

If you would like advice on whether you have a potential clinical negligence claim or assistance with drafting a letter of complaint, please contact us on the number below. Please note that there are legal time limits in place for starting a claim for compensation, and our specialist clinical negligence solicitors will be able to advise you specifically on the facts of your own case.