5 Common types of medical negligence

Any medical operation performed always has the risk of resulting in related injuries.  They are high stress situations no matter how much experience a doctor has and there is always the possibility of making a mistake or neglecting to follow the proper procedure.  This is not to say that the malpractice or negligence is with malicious intent, however, an accident is nonetheless a possibility.

There are many different elements of a medical procedure that a doctor can forget or over look.  Some of the medical malpractice or negligence actions are more common than others.

Here are 5 examples of the most common types of medical negligence cases:

The first type of common medical negligence is an error in anesthesia.  This is more common than you might think.  The improper dose of anesthetic can result in minor injury, metal injury or even liver damage and death.

Doctor making mistakes during childbirth is also common.  This is something that happens every with varying degrees of injury to the baby or mother.  The child can be seriously injured if deprived of oxygen during labour resulting in permanent brain injuries.

Another type of common medical negligence is undiagnosed heart disease.  People who suffer from heart disease have restrictions and guidelines in order to live a healthy life, and if they are not diagnosed with heart disease and live a more risky life this could result in a heart attack and even death.

The fourth type of medical negligence is a doctor’s failure to diagnose cancer.  This can result is a patient not seeking medical treatment until the cancer is too far advanced to be treated.

Mistakes in the treatment of appendicitis are also very common.  Appendicitis can result in septicemia if untreated; this is a life threatening condition as it causes the kidneys and other organs to fail in a very short period of time.

Cork mother died of flesh-eating infection following cosmetic surgery

A 57-year-old woman developed a lethal flesh eating infection and died ten days after undergoing a cosmetic liposuction procedure in the United States.

Mary Ryan, who was originally from Youghal, Co Cork, but living in Leesburg, Florida, had liposuction of her abdomen, neck and jowls at Mesos Cosmetic Surgery and Laser Center, Florida on 19 December 2012.

She travelled to Ireland with her husband James on 24 December to spend Christmas with their son Ian.

Ian Ryan told Cork Coroner's Court that when his mother arrived at his home on 26 December she went straight to bed as she was in a lot of pain.

"She was lying down and was in a serious bit of pain. She showed me her stomach. It was inflated. It looked battered and bruised. We called SouthDoc. They advised us to go straight to the hospital," he said.

Mrs Ryan was already extremely unwell when she arrived at the Accident and Emergency Department of Cork University Hospital at 10.30pm on 26 December complaining of abdominal pain.

She was subsequently diagnosed with necrotising fasciitis, a rare but recognized progressive soft tissue infection.

She underwent two debridement procedures in hospital to remove skin from her abdomen, in order to treat the infection.

Her condition continued to deteriorate and she died on 29 December.

A post-mortem by Assistant State Pathologist Dr Margaret Bolster found that her death was due to shock and sepsis due to necrotising fasciitis following a recent liposuction procedure.

Dr Bolster told the court necrotitising fasciitis was a very serious disease with a very high mortality rate, even if it is picked up very early.

The pathologist said that liposuction was a frequently performed cosmetic operation, but that there can be complications which are possibly fatal.

She told the court that Mrs Ryan was "incredibly unfortunate".

The inquest heard that Mrs Ryan had an underlying heart problem and had underwent a triple bypass surgery just months before the liposuction procedure, but the pathologist said that she died of infection and that her underlying heart problems probably just meant that she died faster.

The inquest heard that Mrs Ryan was assessed by her surgeon Dr Todd P Ginestra the day after the procedure when she complained of pain, but her wounds were clean and dry and he asked if she had picked up her narcotic medication.

She did not attend for her next appointment on 22 December and when her surgeon spoke to her on the phone she said she did not want to come in because she was feeling nauseated and tired and he explained she would feel better if she took the prescribed medication.

When she spoke to her doctor on 23 December she said she was feeling much better and that she did not want to come to see him the following day as she had a lot to do preparing to return to Ireland.

The court heard that there was a breakdown in communications between the clinic and her pharmacy and that she did not get her medication after the operation.

Coroner Dr Myra Cullinane recorded a verdict of death by medical misadventure and expressed her condolences to her husband, who was not in court and to her son, who was accompanied by his aunt.

"It's a sudden and very tragic sequence of events. Liposuction is not an entirely innocuous procedure and is not without its potential difficulties.

It's a well recognized side effect, but it is rare so she is extremely unfortunate in the circumstances," said the coroner.

This article is courtesy of RTE News Ireland.

Medical negligence case study: Kate Evans

In March 2001, Kate Evans went into labor with her first child. Her daughter, Milly, was born via emergency C section after her heart rate dropped. The newborn was immediately rushed to the neonatal unit where she was resuscitated and suffered a seizure. The traumatic birth caused severe damage to the baby’s brain.
 
Milly was found to have Cerebral Palsy as a result of the oxygen deprivation she experienced. The midwife assigned to her initially checked her heartbeat, but failed to continue to monitor it. This caused a delay in delivery and the birth injury to Milly’s brain.
 
Now twelve years old, Milly cannot speak and is confined to a wheelchair. She requires nursing care at all times. Her father was forced to quit his job in the RAF because of Milly’s condition.
 
Kate and her husband Andy filed a claim against the United Lincolnshire NHS Trust. They asked for compensation to be used to fund Milly’s lifelong care. While the trust admitted fault, it initially challenged the settlement amount. The two sides finally agreed on a sum of £10.8m. The family received an initial sum of £5.86m. The remaining money will be given in periodic payments over Milly’ lifetime.
 
The settlement, which is thought to be one of the highest ever awarded for medical negligence in the UK, will be used to continue to provide constant medical care for Milly. The Evans family also plans to buy specialized medical equipment and a house designed to accommodate a wheelchair.
 
While Kate and Andy are grateful for the compensation, they acknowledge that it will never undo the damage done to their daughter. “Milly is a very beautiful, bright, kind and loving daughter. I feel utter grief and loss for the life Milly could have had if she had not been injured,” said Kate Evans. “The family have been through a very difficult time. The money will never make up for the mistake that condemned Milly to a lifetime of dependency on others."
 
A representative for the trust apologized to the Evans family and said that considerable measures had been taken by the hospital to prevent a similar occurrence. 

Dentist to pay compensation to ex-patient

A Wigan orthodontist is to pay damages to a former patient who claims she suffered years of poor dental treatment.

Barry Rimmer, who owns Ashton Dental Practice in Ashton, has agreed to pay an undisclosed sum to Lindsey Kay, following an out-of-court settlement over claims of negligent treatment she received from him between 2002 and 2009.

The 22-year-old from Wigan went to see Dr Rimmer to have fixed appliances fitted to correct her teeth.

When the braces were removed, she was unhappy with the result, as she was left with a gap in her lower teeth and her front upper molars were no longer central.

Her left central incisor was in the middle, meaning all her teeth were out of alignment.

An implant was fitted in the gap and further retainers were fitted in an attempt to realign the front teeth.

But the retainers failed to correct the problem and her treatment was completed in 2009 - with the misalignment still not fixed.

She claims she suffered several years of substandard care from her dentist.

She found it particularly upsetting because this treatment took place throughout her secondary education, a challenging time for any teenager even without dental problems.

Miss Kay now faces several years of painful and complicated restorative treatment to correct the problem.

Nick Grant, a dental negligence special and partner at Devonshires Solicitors in London, said: “This was a clear case of negligent treatment and poor care provided to a vulnerable young girl. I am delighted that Devonshires was able to help Miss Kay and obtain sufficient compensation for her to allow her to undergo the various procedures now required to correct the problems caused by the negligence.

Miss Kay said she was pleased with the result.

She said: “I can now put the worries about my teeth behind me and get them sorted.

“I finally feel as though the dentist has admitted that he was wrong.”

Mr Rimmer failed to respond to our requests for a comment. This is not the first time Mr Rimmer’s professionalism has been questioned.

At a misconduct hearing in July 2010, the General Dental Council found Mr Rimmer guilty of allowing 15 youngsters to be injected with powerful sedatives and failing to inform parents about their risks.

But a watchdog last year cleared him of any wrongdoing and ruled his fitness to practice was not impaired.

Dr Rimmer qualified from Liverpool University in 1986 and he became an associate at Dr Chow’s Dental Practice Group in Liverpool until he opened his own practice in 1989.

He is also a member of The International Association for Orthodontics.

This article is courtesy of Wigan Today.

Herlinda Garcia a woman from Texas wins $367,500 after breast cancer misdiagnosis

A healthy mother-of-four underwent eight grueling rounds of chemotherapy after a doctor misread test results and wrongly diagnosed her with terminal cancer.

Herlinda Garcia has been awarded $367,500 in compensation after she was told she had stage four breast cancer by Dr Ahmed Qadri in 2009.

Mrs Garcia, 54, lost her hair and fell into a deep depression as she went through treatment for the next seven months before another doctor realised the error when she sought treatment for anxiety.

The part-time civil process worker from Victoria, Texas, gave away most of her belongings, arranged for hospice carers to come to her home and drew up a 'bucket list' convinced that she was about to die.

She told KHou11: 'Everything was swollen, I lost my eyebrows, my eyelashes. I wanted to give up on everything.

'When you're told you have stage four terminal cancer that's it, I put my trust in the doctor.'

Mrs Garcia was misdiagnosed in 2009 when Dr Qadri removed a benign tumour from her left breast.

But it wasn't until she went to another doctor because she was suffering anxiety that she was offered a small amount of hope when a series of scans cast doubt on her original diagnosis.

Further tests at a specialist cancer centre in Houston, Texas, revealed that she never had cancer and a subsequent investigation showed that Dr Qadri had misread lab results.

Dr Qadri has since died.

Although Mrs Garcia said that she was relieved when she found out that she didn't have terminal cancer, she said that she was angry that such a mistake was made in the first place.

Her husband Adam Molina said that he wouldn't wish his wife's ordeal on anyone.

A Victoria County jury awarded Mrs Garcia damages following her ordeal which she says has changed her life.

Staff at the MD Anderson Cancer Centre in Houston, Texas, realised the misdiagnosis after Mrs Garcia had sought treatment for anxiety.
 
Mrs Garcia's husband Adam Molina, right, says that he wouldn't wish his wife's ordeal on anyone.

This article is courtesy of the Daily Mail.

NHS negligence claims & furness hospital

Furness General Hospital is the subject of an investigation after thirty families filed legal action claiming that the hospital’s negligence was responsible for an overwhelming number of maternal and fetal deaths or injuries.

A team of fifteen detectives is investigating the deaths after the Care Quality Commission was accused of hindering investigations and covering up evidence of deficiencies in maternal care. Despite the suspicious deaths, the hospital was allowed to get foundation status. Now the patients and their families want an explanation.

Several reports have described the hospital’s management as dysfunctional. It is alleged that little care was given to establishing healthy practices and clinical leadership. Multiple doctors stated that their safety concerns were reported but ignored by managers.

Police are now considering filing corporate manslaughter cases against the University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust.

John Cowdall of the Morecambe Bay Trust had this to say: “There is no denying that the trust has let women and their families down in the past and there are things that should have been done differently.”

“Although we can't change the past, the new trust board is determined that we can learn from it and we will ensure we continue to do so.”“Due to the ongoing police investigation into the deaths of babies and mothers following care received at Furness General Hospital, it would be inappropriate to comment on individual cases. We will continue to co-operate fully and openly with the police.”
 “The new trust board is resolute in its determination that this trust will never let anyone down again in the way it did in the past, and we will not accept second best for our patients.”
 
As of now, fourteen medical negligence claims have been awarded compensation.

Under your skin

Cosmetic surgeons wielding needles aren’t simply, as one doctor put it, “wrinkle chasers” anymore. With highly evolved perspectives on what truly constitutes a youthful look, doctors are now injecting a host of compounds to lift, mold, and contour. Most visits last no more than an hour, and recovery times are equally swift. It’s enough to make a scalpel seem downright crude. So who’s shooting what where?

Reflation Revolution
According to Beverly Hills dermatologist Ava Sham­ban, when it comes to aging, the main culprit is “deflation.” By age 50 or 60, she says, most of us have lost around 20 percent of our facial bone and fat, and as a result, our faces sag and look gaunt—not unlike a pillowcase over a shrunken cushion.

To pump up the volume, Shamban offers a procedure that was developed in Canada and is aptly called Reflation. Unlike more superficial wrinkle-erasing treatments, Reflation entails injecting a hyaluronic acid–based filler well beneath the dermal layer, where it sits on top of the bone and props the skin up, especially beneath the eyes, around the cheeks, at the nasolabial folds, and—most efficaciously, Shamban says—at the temples.

Aging temples? Indeed. They sink over time, and even the most expertly done face can look “off” if the temples are left lying close to the skull. But shoot a syringe of filler into them and they look “fantastic,” she says.

A total refill takes two or three visits, at a cost of $2,000 to $3,500, and the results last for about six months. Subsequent sessions, however, require less filler—and come with a smaller price tag.

The Liquid Nose Job
The nose is not immune from the aging process: Over time it can droop and appear flatter and longer. Bony irregularities that were camouflaged by the thicker skin and lipid layer we had in our 20s become more noticeable.

Now fillers—placed on top of the bone, cartilage, or tip—can give an old nose a youthful boost. “The padding softens the features,” says Coral Gables, Florida, cosmetic dermatologist Oscar Hevia—as long as the physician has a sculptor’s vision. “A millimeter can make a huge change,” cautions Stafford Broumand, an associate professor of plastic surgery at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. The in-office procedure can be completed in as little as half an hour and starts at $700—a universe apart from the traditional two-hour rhinoplasty, which can set you back around $8,000.

Lip Service
They say a genuine smile never grows old—but try telling that to a cosmetic surgeon. Jeffrey Spiegel, the chief of facial plastic and reconstructive surgery at Boston University Medical Center, points out that as we age, our lips lengthen horizontally and fine lines creep up above them, vertically. The upper lip also drifts down, hiding teeth. Darrick Antell, an assistant clinical professor of plastic surgery at Columbia University, injects filler not into the lips but into the roll of skin that surrounds them. “It gives a fuller look without appearing ducky,” Antell says.

And those vertical lip lines? Cosmetic physicians are over the moon about Belotero Balance. Like most fillers, it is FDA-approved for deep nasolabial folds, but doctors are now using it for more-superficial lines—something that’s not possible with other fillers, which have a blue tinge that shows through skin if injected close to the surface. “It’s like Photoshop,” says Miami dermatologist Leslie Baumann. “The lines immediately plump up.” The downside? Considerable bruising for 5 to 10 days. A session costs $650 to $750, with results lasting about six to nine months. »

Carbon Dating
Once upon a time, carbon dioxide therapy was a little known medical practice used to improve circulation. Then, in 1998, beauty-minded scientists at the University of Siena, Italy, began injecting the gas into saggy knees, thighs, and bellies. The result: blood vessels dilated, sending a rush of oxygen into the problem areas. After six semiweekly sessions, skin density improved, and the area looked tauter. Enhanced circulation seems to flush out fluid buildup, improve fat metabolism, and promote collagen production, says Cesare Brandi, M.D., who was the lead author of the study. Subsequent research suggests that carbon therapy can be used as an adjunct to liposuction, to improve skin elasticity and smooth small lumps.

Carboxy, as the treatment is called, gained popularity in 2002 in Brazil. But, perhaps because practitioners would have to go abroad to learn the technique, it has yet to catch on with American doctors. There are, of course, outliers. Lisa Zdinak, a Manhattan ophthalmic plastic surgeon, uses a tiny needle attached to a gas tank to inject small puffs of CO into the skin around the eyes to treat dark circles. “It improves the capillary networks and reduces the bluish tinge by about 50 percent,” she says. Zdinak has also found carboxy to be “brilliant” for baggy lower lids. The best results require six 20-minute sessions, at a cost of $250 each, and last about 6 to 12 months.

Scalpel-Free Sculpting
As of this writing, Voluma has yet to be FDA-approved, but the enthusiasm for this filler can be heard from across the Atlantic. “It has completely changed my practice,” says Hervé Raspaldo, a facial plastic surgeon in Cannes, France, and a consultant for Allergan, the company that manufactures Voluma. Created by the same French lab that invented Juvéderm, Voluma, which is thicker than its forerunner, can be injected under the muscle layer and massaged into the desired shape—offering a scalpel-free way to attain a stronger chin or jaw line or more defined cheekbones. “If you tried this with previous fillers, you would have gotten big lumps. But Voluma doesn’t move,” says ­Raspaldo, who performs such transformations in a rather astounding 5 to 15 minutes. The results last about 18 months.

Good Fat
It almost sounds too easy: Take fat from where you don’t want it and inject it where you do. Once considered a fringe technique, fat grafting is becoming an increasingly viable option with the advent of more-precise instrumentation and a better understanding of fat-cell biology. In Boston, the plastic surgeon Daniel Del Vecchio harvests fat cells from a patient’s thighs, knees, and belly and uses them to enlarge or round out breasts. A typical procedure takes one to two hours and costs around $10,000.

In expert hands, fat—usually softer and more fluid than ­fillers—can also brighten the thin skin around the eyes. An injection not only smooths wrinkles and fills hollows but also acts as a barrier between skin and underlying facial muscles and blood vessels, hiding dark circles, says the New York plastic surgeon Sydney Coleman. What’s more, researchers suspect that the stem cells in fat can actually promote the production of collagen and elastin—and therefore eventually improve the quality of the skin. A session for the lower lids takes about 90 minutes and costs from $5,000 to $10,000.

Complications can arise, however—often due to overzealous injecting. When this occurs, little divots emerge where a dearth of oxygen has caused the fat cells to die. “You can’t do fat grafting casually,” cautions Coleman, who uses tiny increments and as many as 50 passes to complete a procedure around the eye.

Stimulus Package
Despite its name, LIPO-102 isn’t liposuction at all. Instead, the promising—but not yet FDA-approved—procedure targets and stimulates tissue metabolism to reduce fat. Currently, technicians are zeroing in on the precise dose needed to melt away belly fat in average-weight individuals. “It’s a tiny needle, the medicine doesn’t sting, and there’s little bruising,” says Long Island, New York, dermatologist Marina Peredo, who has been involved in product trials. In one study, patients lost up to 1.2 inches after eight weekly sessions, each consisting of about 20 shots around the navel. It may be a couple of years before the FDA okays LIPO-102 for the belly, but once that happens, doctors are sure to be using the needle to address stubborn chin fat and saddlebags too. 

This article is courtesy of WMagazine.

How you can end up taking the wrong medication

Medical negligence, also sometimes referred to as clinical negligence, is something that we are hearing about more and more. Medical professionals have a pretty tough job and a great deal of responsibility on their shoulders. Unfortunately for them, part of that responsibility includes not making any mistakes that lead to further injury and end up doing their patients more harm than good. Some examples of medical negligence that doctors need to be careful to avoid, so their patients don’t end up taking the wrong medication, include prescribing the wrong medication, wrong doses of medications and misdiagnosis.  All of these will end up with an individual taking a medicine that is not right for his or her condition or the wrong dose of medicine, which could interfere with other medications and health conditions or cause a completely new injury or illness.

Wrong Medication

Prescribing errors as the name suggests is when something goes wrong regarding the prescription. This usually means that one of two things happened. Either the prescription was inappropriate or the prescription didn’t effectively communicate information. The former means basically that whilst the diagnosis was correct the individual who wrote the prescription didn’t take into account additional factors concerning the patient, such as their allergies or potential interaction with other drugs. The latter refers to a prescription with notes that are ambiguous or illegible handwriting.

Misdiagnosis

Misdiagnosis will inevitably lead to incorrect treatment and therefore the wrong medication, but this will often fall under the medical negligence category of misdiagnosis.

The next step

If you have been prescribed and therefore taken the wrong medication, you could be entitled to some form of compensation. For more information find a reputable firm of personal injury solicitors and seek their advice regarding how to move forward and the most effective way to file your claim for compensation.

Medical negligence case study: Alfie Buck

When Samantha Buck went to Princess Royal Hospital to deliver her baby in 2006, she expected the staff to provide her with exceptional care. Instead, the midwives failed to monitor her baby’s heartbeat for twelve hours and refused to deliver him by caesarean section. As a result, baby Alfie was deprived of oxygen at birth causing debilitating injury to his brain. Alfie has cerebral palsy.

Though his intelligence was largely spared, today seven year old Alfie is wheelchair bound and suffers from intense and frequent muscle spasms. The bright boy communicates using special technology and requires constant care.

The Brighton & Sussex University Hospital’s NHS Trust acknowledged the claim that Alfie’s condition could have been prevented with proper monitoring and admitted full responsibility for Alfie’s injuries. The Buck family was awarded over eight million pounds in compensation to be used for Alfie’s life long care.

Samantha Buck was pleased with the settlement, although she knows that no amount of money will make up for the negligence that caused injury to her son and family. “Not long after he was born the doctors told us brain scans showed severe abnormalities and it was hard not to be bitter or angry,” she said after the settlement. “It just felt very unfair as Alfie didn’t deserve it.”

“Caring for a child with cerebral palsy has to be the toughest job in the world as it is 24/7 and consumes your life.”

The compensation settlement will be used to provide Alfie with a wheelchair accessible home. The new home will also have room for specialized equipment and quarters for a live-in carer. Additionally, it will be used to fund physiotherapy and specialized education for Alfie. The family also plans to purchase wheelchair accessible transportation to get Alfie to and from his various medical appointments.

The Buck family first filed a medical negligence claim in 2008.

Two perfect babies. But you've just paid Bernice £44,000 compensation for having them

Bernice Quadling can still remember her shock, disbelief and the sudden gush of tears. She rushed from the room, struggling to retrieve her composure, then sat down and attempted to digest the astonishing facts.

Bernice was pregnant with twins. She had not planned to be. On the contrary, she'd had a contraceptive implant fitted in her arm and the chances of it failing were, she had been assured, minuscule.

But it had - and she'd just been told the reason why. She'd been given a dummy implant that was intended only for training purposes. It contained no contraceptive hormones and did not work because it had never been designed to.

Yet Bernice's GP had failed to notice the unequivocal warning stamped on it. 'Do not insert into humans' had been printed on the package.

It was even a different colour from the real implants - yellow, instead of the usual white.

And now, because of a doctor's blunder - a few minutes of casual inattention - Bernice's careful plans had been thrown into tumult, her life changed for ever.

This week, Bernice, who had been the manager of a group of children's nurseries before her twins were born, was amply recompensed for the GP's carelessness following a year-long fight. She won £44,000 from Northamptonshire Health Trust in an out-of-court settlement.

But the award raises a fundamental moral question: should a mother who has been blessed with two perfect children - twins Lexi and Freya are now 11 months old - be entitled to compensation at all?
Should she not merely feel incredibly fortunate that while many women suffer the anguish of infertility - and others lose their lives because of hospital blunders - her life has been enriched by the accidental birth of her beautiful twins?

In an era when NHS resources are scarce and stretched, many would argue that vital funds should not be diverted from life-saving treatment for patients.

Indeed, even the judge who made the award concurred that every child is a blessing. As a result, he made no financial recompense to Bernice for the cost of raising her unexpected arrivals to adulthood - the award was solely for loss of earnings during her pregnancy, the expenses she incurred and the shock she endured.

Bernice has no compunction about accepting the money. 'I have to raise my babies for the next 20 years,' she says. 'So I'm entitled to some money from the NHS.'

Why, some may ask, if she did not want the children, did she not terminate the pregnancy? She says, as a Catholic, that this was never an option for her, as she believes in the sanctity of life from conception onwards. And there is no doubt that her babies, now they are here, are utterly cherished.

'I have two gorgeous little girls I adore,' she concedes. 'Now they're here, they're loved and accepted. I can't imagine life without them and I wouldn't have it any other way. They're amazing.

'People stop and stroke their cheeks, and the other day an elderly lady said to me, "I never managed to carry a baby to full term". In that moment, I felt selfish and ungrateful.'

There will be those, indeed, who say she is. But Bernice remains unrepentant: 'The fact is, all the plans I'd had for my life were thrown into disarray when I became pregnant with the twins and I'll need the money I've been awarded to help look after them.'
'My first reaction was disbelief, then shock, then pure anger,' she recalls. 'I threw the test against the bathroom wall. I've always planned my life, and now those plans were in complete disarray'

Bernice, 37, met the directors of Northamptonshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust last March, after she'd had her dummy implant removed at four months pregnant.

She had been promised an investigation and an explanation as to why the contraception had failed, and she was determined to get to the truth.

'They looked shame-faced when they told me what had happened,' she says. 'It seems the placebos were stored in the same cupboard as the real implants. These were used when staff were being trained how to insert them, and the doctor had fitted one in error.

'When the truth sunk in I was horrified. I burst into tears. I left the room, had a cup of coffee, calmed down and came back.

'I was told the doctor was fully qualified - she was an experienced GP who worked at my local surgery, a mature woman, who was apparently trained in family planning - so it was unbelievable that she should make such a fundamental mistake.

'I was told that the only action taken against her was to send her on a training course. Her error has had no impact on her life or career. Yet everything about my life has been changed completely.'

Bernice, who is independent and hard-working, had always planned her life meticulously. She already had two children, Callista, ten, and Tyra, seven, from her eight-year marriage to her first husband, with whom she had lived for 12 years.

Her family complete, she asked her GP if she could be sterilised. 'However, I was told you had to have had three pregnancies and be over 35 to be eligible for sterilisation on the NHS,' she explains.

Instead, she opted for a long-term contraceptive implant - a small, flexible tube inserted under the skin of the upper arm that stops the release of an egg from the ovary by slowly releasing progesterone into the body - which is effective for three years.

The device is reliable; only one woman in every 1,000 becomes pregnant while it is implanted, and for Bernice, this first device did its job.

However, in 2008, she and her husband, who had drifted apart, finally separated. Bernice began to forge a new life for herself and her daughters.

She bought a modest, four-bedroom semi close to one of her sisters in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, and focused on her £28,000-a-year job and taking care of her daughters.

Then, in May 2011, realising that its expiry date was approaching, Bernice made an appointment with a clinic in Wellingborough to have her contraceptive implant removed and replaced.

'I lay on the couch and the nurse took the old one out - it's about the size of a matchstick - then the doctor popped the new one in.

'I didn't look. I'm a bit squeamish. There was a little bruising but I thought that was a small price to pay for three years of safety,' she says.

Bernice had not had a serious relationship since the end of her marriage, but had decided to play it safe just in case she met someone special.

In October 2011, she met Steven Gulla, 48, a dashing former paratrooper, on a night out with her sisters. 'Steve asked me to dance. He picked me up and swung me round. We were both laughing. I felt I'd known him for ever,' she recalls.

Quickly they fell in love. Steve, who left the Army in 1999, worked as a lecturer in painting and decorating at a local college. Separated from his wife, he had two grown-up sons and four grandchildren. Within a few weeks he and Bernice decided he should move in with her and her daughters.

'We planned a life together,' recalls Bernice. 'There would be time with Callista and Tyra, but also time just for us. Steve loves paragliding and he'd promised to teach me.

'We planned to have weekends together while my daughters were staying with their dad. It would be time just for us; to relax and enjoy ourselves; we'd have meals out and holidays together.

'With two salaries coming in we'd be comfortable financially. The house was just the right size for the four of us - the girls had a bedroom each and there was a small spare one. Bit by bit we planned to redecorate it.'

And on another subject they both agreed: neither Bernice nor Steven wanted more children. Bernice had not enjoyed her pregnancies, and had suffered from post-natal depression with Tyra. But the difficult years, it seemed, were behind her, and her children were not only thriving, but growing more independent.

However, she had barely had time to thoroughly contemplate her plans for a future with her new love Steven before she started to experience some disquieting symptoms.

'In January 2012, when Steve and I had only been together for three months, I started feeling tired. I was constantly falling asleep. At the end of the month I was helping my sister move house. I'd been lifting her garden ornaments and felt really sick.

'I wondered if I was pregnant, then told myself that with the implant that was impossible.

'But the thought wouldn't go away. My breasts felt tender. So I went to Sainsbury's and bought a home test. I intended to eliminate the daft idea that I could possibly be having another baby.'
The test result was unequivocal: it was positive.

'My first reaction was disbelief, then shock, then pure anger,' she recalls. 'I threw the test against the bathroom wall. I've always planned my life, and now those plans were in complete disarray.'
That evening, Bernice broke the news to Steven.

'Although we'd made a commitment to each other, I didn't want him to feel trapped,' she recalls.

'When I told him, "I'm pregnant" he thought I was joking at first. Then I just stared at him and the truth sunk in.

'I said, "There's no decision for me. I'll be keeping it. But I understand if you don't want to stay. I want to give you the option to leave".'

'I was shocked, overawed,' recalls Steve. 'I was totting up the figures in my head: I'll be 58 when our child is ten: how much of its life am I going to see?" But I'd already decided I wanted to be with Bernice.

'I'd moved in because we wanted to be together. There was no thought that I'd leave - no question.
'But Bernice and I had ruled out having children together. I was confused. I wanted to know how on earth it had happened.'

Equally perplexed, Bernice phoned the contraceptive implant's helpline. 'I asked, "Can you ever get a false positive on a pregnancy test if you have the implant?" I thought perhaps an imbalance of hormones could cause it. But the adviser said it definitely wasn't possible. He told me to see my GP at once and to have the implant removed.'

So in February 2012, Bernice visited the clinic again. 'I told the nurse I was pregnant and obviously the implant needed to come out. She looked concerned.

'When it came out of my arm she seemed to be uncomfortable about its colour: it wasn't white, but greenish-yellow. She left the room, came back and said, "We'll let you know what we find out".

'I wanted to know why it hadn't worked. If I had been one of the tiny minority who'd become pregnant despite having the implant, I'd have accepted that. But I didn't believe that had happened, partly because of the nurse's reaction.'
Two weeks on, Bernice received an apologetic phone call from her local NHS trust. She was promised a full investigation and last March she met Trust bosses.

Meanwhile, she and Steve went for her routine 12-week scan. 'We had just started to get our heads round the fact that I was having a baby,' says Bernice, 'And then the sonographer, who was looking at the image on the screen, said, "I can't quite see both of them".

'I didn't think I could take any more shocks. I said, "both of them?"

'Steve and I were silent; stunned. We'd been panicking about how we'd cope practically and financially with one. Now we were being told there were two. I was scared, shocked.

'My small spare bedroom was just big enough for a cot. Now there would be two. We'd just bought a bigger car to accommodate a baby seat. Now we'd have to trade it in for a people carrier. And all I could think about was how our lives would change for the next 20 years.'

Conscious of the trust's blunder, friends and family urged Bernice to seek compensation, but she and Steve say they were reluctant.

Their first concern was their twins. 'I didn't want them to find out later on in life and think they hadn't been loved,' says Bernice.

For many others, the dilemma would be a conspicuously different one: should precious NHS funds be used on such claims when resources are so sparse?

But for Bernice, it was the imminent financial practicalities of raising her children that prevailed.

'We knew we owed it to our daughters to go ahead with the claim because any money we were awarded would help raise them,' she says.

Meanwhile, her double pregnancy progressed. Her weight ballooned. She suffered from gestational diabetes and had to inject herself with insulin. Neither did she enjoy the sense of her life constricting, her freedom diminishing.

'I felt invaded,' she says. Her two older daughters, however, were both unequivocally joyful.

'They were so excited. Callista said, "I've always wanted a baby brother or sister; now we're having two!"'

Despite her misgivings, the love stole in on Bernice, too. 'At the 20-week scan I saw them more distinctly. They were squished together; two little bodies, one bigger than the other, the little one sitting on the other's head and I thought, "How cute are they?" I felt a natural urge to love and protect them,' she says.

Their birth, on August 24, 2012, was, she says, bewildering. She remembers the crush of medical staff in the room; Steven's anxious face, then the ecstasy that flooded in on her after their safe, natural delivery.

'When everyone had gone and I had a moment to myself to sit and snuggle them, I felt just awe and love,' she says. 'Freya, born first, was just so cuddly. Lexi, who came along 14 minutes later, had a look of mischief on her face.'

Now their little house is busy and crammed. Lexi, dark-haired and grey-blue eyed, greets me with a beam of delight. Freya, fairer, squeaks and coos at her sister in the private, impenetrable language of twins.

'They're gorgeous little ladies, but they've put a lot of pressure on a new relationship,' says Bernice. 'But we're getting through it, aren't we Steve?'

They exchange a glance. When they have the money - and time - they plan to get married.

But there will be no more babies: Bernice has made sure of that. She has been sterilised.

In the small sitting room, toys jostle for position with high chairs, baby bouncers, a play pen. It is a chaotic, happy scene. After everything, Bernice is elated and exhausted.

But should she have been awarded £44,000 for accidentally falling pregnant with two beautiful, healthy daughters? It is a question many will hotly debate.

This article is courtesy of the Daily Mail.

Mother sues former Norwich GP, alleging negligence resulting in baby daughter’s permanent brain damage

A former Norwich GP is being sued for more than £1m by a mother who claims her baby daughter’s permanent brain damage was caused by the doctor’s negligence.

Jane Bygrave, the mother of Molly Bygrave, now aged 17, is taking Dr Robert MacGibbon to the High Court in London after she alleges he failed to advise her to take her seriously-ill infant to hospital.

Ms Bygrave, who lives on Oxwick Road in Horningtoft, near Dereham, claims that as a result her 10-week premature daughter now functions as a five-year-old, has cerebal palsy and epilepsy.

The claim form seen by the EDP says Molly “will never work or achieve independence”, has a wheelchair for outside of the home and needs 24-hour care.

It describes how in February 1996 11-week-old Molly was taken by her mum to see Dr MacGibbon at Wensum Valley Medical Practice on Bates Green in Norwich after she became ill with vomiting and diarrhoea.

The following morning, says the document, her condition had not improved and Ms Bygrave returned to the surgery where the doctor noted the baby looked “well” but was still vomiting.

Later that evening, the claim form says Ms Bygrave rang the doctor to ask him to visit urgently as Molly had got worse, was beginning to appear “cold, drowsy and tired”, and had started to lose her colour, “becoming grey”.

The doctor said he would visit in the morning and advised Molly’s mother to wrap her daughter up warmly and give her regular fluids, according to the claim.

When he came to the house the next day, the claim says, he did not examine Molly and noted she was “better” and “sleeping”.

The claim submitted by Ms Bygrave’s solicitors, Norwich-based Rogers and Norton, says: “In fact, when the defendant [Dr MacGibbon] visited at 7.30am on the Sunday morning, Molly was not ‘better’ but was cold, grey, dehydrated and obviously seriously ill.

“These facts would have been detectable on any responsible assessment.”

Molly was taken to the A&E department, the claim document says, at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital that afternoon where she was found to be seriously ill with a temperature of 29 degrees – eight degrees below normal.

She was moved to a specialist unit at the Glenfield Hospital in Leicester the next day with a transfer note from the N&N stating, according to the claim form: “Despite several visits by family doctors, Molly’s low temperature was not detected. She was grey... and peripherally shut down.”

Dr Robert MacGibbon is being represented by the Medical Defence Union (MDU) but was unable to comment on the case because of confidentiality.

The MDU refused to comment on whether a defence had been submitted, and no papers were available at the court.

The Wensum Valley Medical Practice also said they would not comment.

Ms Bygrave’s solicitor at Rogers and Norton said his client had nothing to add.

This article is courtesy of EDP24.

Patient, 34, died from a brain tumour the size of a tennis ball after three doctors mistook symptoms for depression

A man who was wrongly diagnosed with depression died after it was discovered that he had a brain tumour the size of a tennis ball.

Chris Buckley, 34, lost his speech as a result of the tumour which was only diagnosed when he went to A&E after he lost use of his hand.

Three doctors were investigated after Chris's father, Malcolm, went to the General Medical Council to report what had happened, but they will not face action after independent experts gave conflicting verdicts over the standard of Mr Buckley's care.

However, it was concluded that two doctors' had fallen 'seriously below that expected of a reasonably competent GP' while the third failed to consider other causes of a speech problem that had set in.

Mr Buckley went to Robert Frew Surgery in Wickford, Essex, in December 2011 because he was struggling to talk and could not remember some words.

He visited the surgery with girlfriend Kelly McCain who had to speak for him because his speech had got so bad and was prescribed with antidepressant citalopram and sleeping tablets by Dr Oluwatoyin Ogunsanya who also referred him for counselling.

His condition worsened over the New Year and he saw Dr Atef Wissa who prescribed more antidpressants.

But by the end of January Mr Buckley was barely able to speak and he was referred to a mental health unit at Basildon Hospital by Dr Adegbnoyega Tayo.

Dr Tayo noted he was 'not able to talk, hardly getting words, unkempt and crying' adding that he was 'almost mute'.

But when he got to the mental health unit, staff were unable to understand him and he left.

When father and late mother, Sylvia Buckley, 59, noticed that he could not use his right hand they were told by NHS Direct to take him to A&E where the tumour was discovered.

He was transferred to Queen's Hospital, Romford, where drugs improved his speech but two months later his situation deteriorated rapidly and he died on May 2 last year.

The GMC told Drs Ogunsanya and Wissa to reflect on the findings of independent expert Dr Leonard Peter while it was concluded that there was no further action needed for Dr Tayo.

Malcolm Buckley believes his son may have received better treatment sooner if he had been properly assessed and diagnosed.

He said: 'It would also have ended the confusion he had about what was happening to him. He was upset he could not speak and trusted the GPs' advice even though he was not getting better.

'I told him to stop the citalopram in the first week, but Dr Wissa told him to go back on it without sending him for any neurological examination.'

Speaking at the conclusion of the investigation he added: 'If a doctor can’t examine a patient they shouldn’t be in practice or allowed to examine other patients.'

Dr Oginsanya said: 'It is a big jump to say there was negligence. It was a very unusual presentation. When each one of us saw him there were no neurological problems, no headaches, no vomiting.

'He (Chris) did not say he could not remember words. There was no loss of limbs and that is why I used the (depression) assessment tool.

'We are not saying there were no lessons to be learned from this case. We need to be more alert to other causes. Unfortunately he saw three different doctors at different times.

'If a patient comes back and has not improved we need to vigorously assess why they are not getting better.'

The hospital accepted there had been a prescribing error, but said the drug was sometimes prescribed to tumour sufferers.

A hospital spokesman said: 'Mr Buckley believes the administration of a drug to his son had a negative effect, but this medication had no ill effects.

'Sadly the reason for the deterioration in Chris’ health was because his tumour had grown. This has been explained in full to Mr Buckley and the trust has been very open about his son’s care.'

A practice spokesman spoke for Dr Wissa and Dr Tayo: 'Even though Mr Buckley has spoken publicly, we are unable to discuss confidential details of patient care.

'The GMC conducted a thorough investigation and made no recommendations for action. We offer our sincere condolences to the family.'

Mr Buckley has raised the case with the county’s health authority NHS Essex, which has pledged its own standards investigation and to refer the case back to the GMC, and Wickford MP Mark Francois.

A GMC spokeswoman said it does not comment on investigations.

A spokesman for NHS Essex said: 'The Essex area team medical director has met Mr Buckley and agreed the investigation process. As we have a duty of confidentiality during on-going investigations we are unable to comment further.'

This article is courtesy of the Daily Mail.

Medical negligence case study: Surinder Venables

A doctor who mistakenly removed part of a patient’s bowel after confusing it with abnormal tissue had a history of negligence that had gone unreported by the hospital’s trust.
 
Pathologist Ian Calder gave the patient’s cause of death as a gastric haemorrhage, multiple organ failure and inflammation of the abdomen due to perforation of the uterus.
 
Not only did Dr Nikolaos Papanikolaou fail to recognize an organ, he also punctured the patient’s uterus. Forty nine year old Surinder Venables died from cardiac arrest one month after her severely botched procedure. Her family was horrified to learn that Dr Papanikolaou had previously left swabs in his patients, failed to recognize when emergency surgical procedures were necessary, and was accused of causing the stillbirth of an infant.
 
None of Dr Papanikolaou’s errors had been reported to the General Medical Council (GMC). The Council was not aware of any complaints against the doctor until a patient’s father complained to them in 2010. This started an inquiry which found that Dr Papanikolaou was an extremely poor record keeper, mismanaged multiple decisions, and was overall careless.
 
After the inquiry, the GMC is considering taking Dr Papanikolaou off of the registrar.
 
Some have called the NHS negligent because of its reporting policies concerning doctors. "His practices should have been looked into deeply and if there was any doubt whatsoever that he should have been reported to the General Medical Council,” said David Marjara, Ms Venables brother.
 
"These people should be investigated properly by the hospital and the NHS and then they should not be allowed to work."
 
Ms Venables left behind a partner and two daughters. The family is pursuing a negligence claim for compensation against the trust. However, they are choosing to remember the positives about their lost love one.  Ms Venables partner, Alan Chapman, had this to say about her: “She was always helping others, always with a smile, and once you met her you felt like you had known her for ages.”

If you, or anyone you know, has been a victim of medical negligence and you'd like to claim compensation simply add your details to the quick Start a Claim form at TRUE Solicitors and they'll get back to you within 2 working hours.

5 examples of medical negligence

Medical negligence can occur in almost any medical treatment or operation, resulting in a huge variety of injuries cause. There are several procedures that are more prone to risk, but even in these cases the NHS has a duty of care to ensure that only the most qualified doctors with the right training and safeguards carries it out.

Negligence can be caused by a multitude of factors, including short staffing, in which case the medical staff can become more tired and prone to mistakes. Not following procedure, for example patient identification can also lead to very serious errors.

Below are some of the most common types of medical negligence cases:

1.    Negligence at the time of birth: The family of a child with cerebral palsy were awarded 4.5 Million Euros on the grounds of medical negligence. The court ruled that the hospital neglected to monitor the heartbeat of the mother and so they didn’t realise that the baby was under trauma. The result was that the baby was deprived of oxygen, which affected his brain and he was diagnose cerebral palsy of the kid. Cerebral palsy requires a lifelong care and medication. Although compensation money will take care of the medical bills, this family will never be compensated fully for their grief.

 2.    Surgical error: In one case a young woman was admitted in hospital and underwent an operation. She was suffering from type-I diabetes. The operation had high chances of developing pressure sores in her body, but the hospital failed to provide care to the patient and failed to assess the high chances of development of pressure sores. This lead to Osteomyelitis as the pressure sores expanded and infected the bones of the patient. The woman received 20,000 Euros as compensation for her injuries.

3.    Dental negligence: Irene went for a tooth filling, but the doctor botched the procedure. This resulted in a painful root canal and other corrections which needed to be made. The patient received a compensation of 17,000 Euros.

4.    Delayed diagnosis: There was a woman suffering from an ear infection was not diagnosed properly. After two years of painful ear infection, some other ENT specialist diagnosed her with cholesteatoma. This required immediate surgery else she would have been deaf for the rest of her life. She sued the first hospital and won 7500 Euros for the mental trauma and pain she had to bear for 2 years.

5.    Wrong diagnosis: Laurence ball in the year 2005 was diagnosed with lung cancer and underwent a surgery to remove the infected lung. However, later on, it came to light  that he was not actually suffering from cancer, and the lung was removed for no good reason. The removal of his lung has limited his lifestyle as now he cannot undergo any exercise. He is currently fighting a legal case against the hospital which diagnosed him with cancer.

Lives torn apart by failure to do the basics at 14 hospitals

The 35-year-old insurance worker had been diagnosed with a low-grade brain tumour in July 2010. But when he was admitted to the hospital’s A&E department in August the following year, after falling ill on a night out, staff failed to take the condition into account and treat him appropriately.

His was one of thousands of deaths that might have been avoided, were it not for basic failings in care at 14 hospital trusts.

The figures make grim reading, but on Tuesday Professor Sir Bruce Keogh, the medical director of the NHS, will concentrate not on the figures, but on the failure of the health service to solve the problems that they made clear.

His review of hospital performance was conducted on the instruction of the Prime Minister in the wake of the Stafford Hospital scandal, where as many as 1,200 patients died needlessly amid “appalling” conditions.

In February, on the day a public inquiry into Stafford exposed appalling failings, Sir Bruce was asked to review the quality of care and treatment at 14 NHS trusts that had higher than expected mortality rates in the past two years.

This week he will show how excess deaths at the hospitals, which serve 5.5  million people, go back far further than two years, and deep into Labour’s time in government.

His report, an overarching one on the state of the NHS as well as a detailed examination of each of the 14 trusts, will show that the rot could have been stopped long ago.

Evidence that there were far too many deaths at the hospitals was available when the extent of the scandal of North Stafford Hospitals was emerging in 2009.

However, the failures at Stafford were repeatedly dismissed as an isolated case. In March 2009 Gordon Brown, then prime minister, told MPs: “I am assured by the Healthcare Commission [the then regulator]... that there is no equivalent case in all the other NHS hospitals across the country.”

Sir Bruce’s report will be seen by critics as evidence this was wrong, and add the names of 14 trusts to Stafford’s as a roll of shame: Basildon and Thurrock; Colchester; Burton; Northern Lincolnshire and Goole; Sherwood Forest; George Eliot; Tameside; Dudley group; North Cumbria; Medway; United Lincolnshire; Blackpool; Buckinghamshire healthcare; and East Lancashire.

It will also raise profound questions about Labour’s handling of the NHS.

None of that will bring succour to Mr Day’s family. He had been in London with friends when he started vomiting and suffering head pains, and was taken by ambulance to Basildon hospital, where A&E staff failed to make regular observations of his condition. No neurological assessments were carried out and his airways were not checked, despite the hospital staff being told of the tumour by paramedics. When his tumour haemorrhaged, Mr Day went into cardiac arrest, suffering irreversible brain damage.

Caroline Beasley-Murray, the Essex coroner, said that if Mr Day had been examined sooner and neurological observations taken there was an opportunity to stall his cardiac arrest. Although she acknowledged that even with appropriate treatment, he may still have died, she said: “There were very serious failings in the care he received in the A&E department.”

Mr Day’s death followed a report by the Care Quality Commission the previous November which described bad hygiene, blood-spattered equipment and mould on the walls at Basildon A&E.

The trust was ordered to improve, but critics noted that the CQC disclosed failings at Basildon only after the trust’s high death rates were exposed by this newspaper. Until then, the health watchdog had said the trust was providing good care.

Andrew Lansley, then shadow health secretary, raised fears that Basildon was not an isolated case. “It is unacceptable that inspectors can score hospitals as 'good’ when many patients could tell them that the opposite is in fact true. A number of other hospitals also have high death rates, including Colchester, United Lincolnshire, Dudley and Tameside,” he said.

Each of those hospitals is among the 14 in Sir Bruce’s review, but when the issue was raised in the Commons in 2009, Andy Burnham, the then health secretary, suggested that figures on death rates could not be trusted and that the public should put its faith in the new health watchdog, which Labour had set up and which began work fully in April 2009.

“The authoritative voice on these matters is the CQC,” he told Parliament. “The report [on death rates which Mr Lansley raised] … analysed a more limited set of clinical and quality data than the CCQ. The CQC … takes a wider view.”

Last month the watchdog’s “wider view” was exposed as a culture of cover-up, with allegations that senior figures were determined to suppress evidence of poor performance at hospitals. Accusations have been made that regulators acted as they did because they were bowing to government pressure.

Other warning signs were there if those overseeing hospitals had looked. When it came to paying out compensation, for example, Basildon and Thurrock University Hospitals was one of the worst.

Between 2009 and 2012 it spent £19 million on settlements, compared with the average of £3.2 million among English trusts. That was not the largest total for an individual hospital. East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust and Tameside Hospital, in Ashton-under-Lyne, each paid out £30 million.

Data collected for Sir Bruce’s review, and seen by The Sunday Telegraph, make disturbing reading. The investigation examined not just mortality rates but infection levels; the number of patients suffering from preventable and potentially fatal signs of neglect; and the numbers harmed by “never events” such as operations on the wrong part of the body, or surgical instruments left inside a patient.

At United Lincolnshire, there were 12 such events in three years, with seven at Basildon and Thurrock and five at Buckinghamshire.
 
It was at Grantham hospital, part of United Lincolnshire Trust, that Lorraine Brewin, 46, underwent a routine operation on varicose veins in January 2009. However, she suffered a dangerous build-up of blood in her leg and was transferred to another hospital. Delays and a lack of physiotherapy meant her lower left leg had to be amputated 12 months later. The trust apologised, said it had given its staff extra training to avoid a repeat and paid compensation. Another test was being failed: at North Cumbria University Hospitals Trust only 35 per cent of staff said last year that they would be happy for a relation or friend to be treated there, compared with a national average of 60 per cent.

Another key measure is the ratio of qualified nurses to patients measured in terms of “productive hours” spent on patients by a qualified registered nurse per month. At all but one of the trusts this fell short of the national average.     

At George Eliot Hospital NHS Trust last year only 15.5 hours were spent by each qualified nurse per month directly benefiting patients, compared with the average of 85.6 nationally. The picture at Tameside hospital, was little better, with just 17.4 hours, and 25.5 hours at the Dudley Group of Hospitals.

It was at Tameside in January 2009 that Brian Wade, 69, died in agony after lying on a ward for five days while his stomach condition went untreated. Killed by blood poisoning caused by colitis, a severe but treatable inflammation of the colon, his last words were begging his daughter to get help.

A month later, Liz Degnen’s mother Betty Dunn, 79, died after contracting the superbug Clostridium difficile at the hospital in February 2009. Describing visiting her mother the day after she was admitted, Mrs Degnen said: “She was slumped across the bed with blood seeping out of her arm. Her eyes were rolling around in the back of her head and she was squirming and trying to climb over the rails of her bed. That image is planted in my mind for ever.”

Later that year the CQC rated the hospital’s services as “good”, based on a system which allowed NHS trusts to rate themselves.

Then, in February last year, a 12-year-old disabled girl lay dead in a bed at Tameside without anyone noticing for so long that rigor mortis set in. Emma Stones, who suffered from cerebral palsy, was admitted with flu-like symptoms in February last year and died 16 hours later from blood poisoning.

John Pollard, the Manchester South coroner, said she might have survived with better care, adding: “The nursing and medical care of Emma fell below the standard that most people would consider satisfactory.”

A spokesman for Tameside said it had acknowledged failures in the case of Emma and Mrs Dunn and reached an out-of-court settlement of £40,000 with Mr Wade’s widow.

The chief executive, Christine Green, and her medical director, Tariq Mahmood resigned 11 days ago, after fresh disclosures that patients were having to wait up to four days to see a consultant, or were left in corridors for hours.

For thousands of families Sir Bruce’s review may provide some answers about what went wrong for their relations; for everyone else they must provide a way of rebuilding faith in the NHS. 

This article is courtesy of the Telegraph.