Archives

An inquest in to the death of baby Ebony Mccall has stated that the standards of care on the maternity ward at Milton Keynes General Hospital were below what they should have been. According to the BBC, Ebony suffered from a faint heartbeat after being born by caesarean section and died in May 2009.

Her mother, Amanda Mccall, suffered from several medical conditions including cardiac disease.  Ms Mccall was initially denied a Caesarean birth because it was deemed too risky. She had been admitted with severe stomach pains and this should have made her a high risk patient, and she should have been afforded one to one midwife care. However, this was not granted due to a lack of staffing at the hospital and her daughter Ebony was born with an erratic heartbeat, a pathologist revealed that she had suffered from oxygen deprivation.

With additional care Ms Mccall may have been able to have a caesarean at an earlier stage and taking in to account her medical history, her pregnancy should have been “consultant led at the outset”, according to consultant Anthony Stock.
Read More

The owner of a tanning salon where a schoolgirl suffered severe burns has been ordered to pay £6,000 in costs.

According to the BBC, Mr James Hadley admitted to five health and safety breaches at the Lextan Salon in Barry, Vale of Glamorgan. The court was keen to stress that the injuries suffered by the girl were not as a direct result of the offences and that the charges levelled at Mr Hadley did not relate to her injury but Judge John Charles made it very clear that there was a degree of recklessness in operating an unmanned salon.

The injured girl suffered first degree burns after remaining on a tanning machine for 19 minutes and had to remain in hospital overnight following the incident. This in turn prompted the inspection of the premises.
Read More

Hospitals, GPs and other healthcare providers will in future have to log every time a patient suffers harm or dies as a result of treatment.

According to the Guardian, NHS organisations will have to detail every mistake, accident and incident that leads to a patient suffering pain, trauma, injury or death. Previously the system has been one of voluntary reporting of patient safety incidents to the the National Patient Safety Agency. But this has had serious criticism as it obviously makes for skewed statistics and allows for errors to be ignored and go unreported.

Lord Patel, the NPSA’s chairman said, “Patient safety needs to improve and making reporting mandatory will help that happen.” However, he also stated that he did not believe that this would lead to an increase in medical negligence claims.
Read More

We have previously explored claims for psychological injuries and how anxiety can affect us in different ways. But what causes anxiety?

Road traffic accidents often lead to bouts of anxiety experienced by many individuals as they experience situational anxiety whilst travelling in vehicles following accidents. This may be whilst travelling as a passenger or as a driver and it can be very debilitating for some.

Individuals often experience an increase in heart rate, hot flushes, a feeling of disorientation and nausea. Affects vary between individuals and some people experience far worse affects or much lesser.

It is not just physical events which can cause us feelings of anxiety as life events such as exams, work and family problems can lead to such affects.
Read More

A Tesco Express store in Birmingham city centre has been temporarily closed by environmental health officers. The closure was unexpected and occurred on Monday and is ongoing while environmental health officers inspect the site.

According to the BBC, the store at 150 Wharfside Street, Birmingham currently displays a notice stating that it has been subjected to a hygiene emergency prohibition notice issued by the council. The environmental health officers who attended the site were satisfied that the store ‘poses an immediate risk of injury to health’. Further details of what has caused the closure have yet to be revealed but Tesco have announced that they will issue a statement later today on the matter.
Read More

A boy aged 6 years old who suffered brain damage in a fall at his nursery has been awarded substantial damages to help pay for his care. Young James Pitcher now requires 24 hour care following a fall from a changing table at the Headstart Nursery in Croydon in August 2004.

According to the BBC, the incident left James quadriplegic and unable to swallow effectively. He is not expected to live past 15. In 2008 he was allocated £1,320,000 and the final sum for the care will remain confidential.
Read More

7 cancer patients are set to sue a hospital for medical negligence after wrongly being given the ‘all clear’ following errors in the screening program.

The error took place at Accrington Victoria Hospital in East Lancashire and there are actually 18 reported cases of misdiagnosis!

The errors were down to one radiologist whom had failed to pick up on the disease on reviewing the screening results. It is reported that he has thankfully not worked for the trust since April this year but that does not make up for the lives he has jeopardised!
Read More

A hospital in Plymouth has admitted to numerous failings in its treatment of a 79- year-old man.

According to the BBC, Mr Cecil Barnes was admitted to hospital in July 2008 to undergo surgery on his bladder. However, he collapsed on his return to the ward and equipment used to resuscitate him was either faulty or used incorrectly and he later died.

Following his collapse, the first machine that staff used to try and clear his airway and resuscitate him was faulty. A different machine was brought in but the staff were unfamiliar with the equipment and it was not properly switched on.  A third machine was then tried, but again this was not switched on because staff did not regularly use it and did not know how to operate it.
Read More

The BBC have reported on the case of Mark Thomas, aged 20, whom developed meningitis following an ear infection in 2002.

The ear infection lead to further complications and his family rushed him to Walsall manor hospital where blood tests were taken. Mr Thomas was sent home and his test results were not reviewed for 5 days; even on review of the test results he was not called back for treatment.

Mr Thomas later developed pneumococcal meningitis and by the time he was diagnosed he had already suffered neurological injury.

Medical expert’s have confirmed that if the results had been reviewed and acted upon promptly then he could have received the appropriate antibiotic treatment and would not have suffered brain damage.
Read More

Nearly one in 10 hospital prescriptions contain an error, according to research conducted at the University of Manchester.

According to the BBC, the mistakes in the prescriptions range from the minor to the potentially lethal, however the General Medical Council (or GMC) has found that very few of the errors made would cause serious harm.

The study was conducted after concerns that novice doctors were making prescription errors. However, the study showed that they were no more responsible than experienced doctors.

Of 124,260 prescriptions examined across 19 hospitals, just under 9% contained errors. The vast majority of the errors were caught and corrected before reaching the patient however, of the 11,077 errors which were discovered, 2% of them contained potentially lethal instructions.
Read More