It has been reported by the Public Accounts Committee that medical negligence affects one in ten patients per year that stay in UK hospitals. This figure is unacceptable and amounts to nearly a million people that have suffered unnecessarily at the hands of medical professionals who were trusted with their care and welfare. It believed of this number, over 2,000 were fatal mistakes.
These figures do not include the estimated quarter of unreported incidents and another thirty nine per cent of near misses. Until all incidents are reported fully, a complete picture cannot be built and measures will not be in place to prevent all further incidents.
Surgical errors, wrong doses of medication, falls and mis-diagnosis were the mistakes made, some due to human error, some to understaffing pressures and some through staff simply not applying their knowledge correctly. Someone has to be held accountable for these things and this leads to personal injury claims against hospitals. These claims result in compensation pay outs that the NHS can ill afford.
One such patient has recently won a 3.4 pounds million personal injury claim after a hospital failed to diagnose an unstable fracture. A fracture sounds pretty minimal but when you consider the fracture was in the man's neck, mis-diagnosed and treated as a mild neck injury and led to a much more serious spinal cord injury with paralysis, you can see how he deserves the compensation.
This farmer had an accident with his tractor and was taken to hospital by ambulance suffering from a neck injury. Staff failed to spot the unstable fracture and therefore he didn't receive the correct treatment. The patient was mobilised causing a severe injury to the spinal cord. He was unable to go back home and car for himself but alternative suitable accommodation could not be found, leading him to have to stay in the spinal injury unit for over two years.
A personal injury lawyer eventually secured the admission of negligence from the hospital and enough interim payments to allow the patient to secure adapted accommodation in a house near his family. With no sensation below the chest and limited movement in the upper arms, the patient's life has been changed beyond all recognition and although he is now adapting to the way he will see out his life, it would not have happened had hospital staff taken more care in studying his X-rays.
The result of a 3.4 pounds million personal injury claim may sound substantial but when you think about how someone's neglect has brought about a change to this man's course of life and how he will now have to pay someone to care for him for the rest of his life, you can see how the payment is just.
It is only through the medical negligence incidents being reported, thoroughly investigated and claimed for that not only will people receive the care that they need but future accidents will hopefully be reduced. You can never get rid of human error totally but if hospitals were better staffed, there would be less pressure, things could be checked and re-checked because staff would have more time and the occasions of medical negligence would be reduced to a point where the country would once again be able to have faith in its health system. An issue for the government I think. |
