A former hedge fund boss is considering legal action after being “wrongly sectioned” in a maximum-security psychiatric ward.
Aaron Dover, 39, claims he was detained against his will for 10 days, physically restrained and forcibly injected with sedatives at Highgate Mental Health Centre.
Mr Dover, of Hampstead, was held after his wife became concerned for his well-being and called the NHS 111 out-of-hours number. Authorities feared he might be suicidal and theMetropolitan Police launched a helicopter search. He was having a coffee nearby.
He admitted being under pressure due to an employment dispute and said he had at times suffered from depression, but claimed the response was completely over the top: “I was brought into hospital by a manhunt of more than 10 police cars, police with dogs trawling Hampstead Heath, and a police helicopter, while I was out quietly having a coffee on Flask Walk.
“I was hunted down like a nuclear suicide bomber rather than someone out for Sunday breakfast.
“I was held against my will with patients who were terrifying. Some of them were quite aggressive and there were frequent fights. It’s basically the Hannibal Lecter ward ofHighgate.
“I wanted to leave every second of every minute. I never wanted to set foot in that place and the whole thing was just an atrociously awful nightmare.”
After being detained last September, the IT consultant was taken to Highgate Mental Health Centre, where doctors suspected he had a delusional disorder. He was later sectioned.
He admits he was under intense stress but believes his sectioning was based on hearsay and not enough was done to verify his account of events.
On October 2, following a five-hour hearing, a tribunal found that it was “not satisfied that he was suffering from a mental disorder”. Mr Dover was freed immediately with no further treatment required.
He is considering legal action against Camden and Islington NHS foundation trust over unlawful detention, medical negligence and personal injury. Solicitor José Grayson of D H Law, who represented Mr Dover at the tribunal, said: “The hospital had simply failed to properly investigate what Aaron was saying. It is now some months since his discharge. If they were right about the fact that he had a serious psychotic illness then he would be back in hospital.”
A spokesman for Highgate Mental Health Centre, which is run by Camden and Islington Trust, said: “The tribunal makes a decision on whether further detention is warranted based on the assessment to date, and their own interviews.
“The decision that no further detention is needed does not make the original detention for assessment wrong or illegal.”
The NHS’s multi-billion pound medical-negligence bill could be “slashed” by apologising to patients and mounting a “vigorous defence” against bogus claims, the Health Secretary has suggested.
Jeremy Hunt said he hopes the NHS can achieve “similar results” to the health service run by the University of Michigan in the United States, which has seen the number the number of claims more than halve in a decade.
It comes at the NHS Litigation Authority, the body which oversees claims made against the health service, released figures disclosing that half of the cases it faces are rejected because they are “without merit”, a figure which has risen by a third in two years.
Overall, the number of claims the NHS is facing this year is expected to rise by a fifth to around 12,000.
More than £22billion - equivalent to about a fifth of the health service's annual budget - has been set aside to pay compensation to thousands of people harmed by poor care.
The Telegraph disclosed earlier this week that the doctors and nurses are being told to “say sorry” as soon as possible and put aside fears of litigation because it is the “right thing to do”.
Mr Hunt subsequently went further in a Tweet, citing the University of Michigan’s approach as an “interesting example of how being open and saying sorry could slash [the] litigation bill. [We] want to see similar results in the NHS.”
The University of Michigan, which is now one of the safest medical centres in the United States, says its approach is to “apologise and learn where you’re wrong, explain and vigorously defend when we’re right, and view court as a last resort”.
The NHS litigation authority said that the number of cases it faces has increased significantly because the government reduced the “success fees” that no-win, no-fee lawyers could claim.
From April last year, the success fee lawyers could charge if cases were successful was reduced from 100 per cent to 25 per cent. The change led to a rush of claims before the deadline, many of which the authority believes are “less meritorious”.
This article is courtesy from The Telegraph.
Almost £45m was paid to settle negligence cases involving hospitals in Leeds and Wakefield in three years, the Yorkshire Evening Post can reveal.
The payouts for mistakes or poor care were funded by the NHS Litigation Authority, an insurance scheme for NHS bodies.
Between 2010 and 2013, £28m was paid for negligence claims at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs Leeds General Infirmary and St James’s Hospital.
A further £16.6m was paid for cases involving Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust, which operates hospitals in Wakefield, Dewsbury and Pontefract.
Claims involving obstetrics and gynaecology patients were among those resulting in the highest payouts – which are likely to be linked to incidents during the delivery of babies.
A Leeds health campaign group said the payouts were high and urged health bosses to ensure lessons were learned.
Retired nurse Maureen Idle, from Leeds Hospital Alert, said: “In any job a mistake is a mistake, but a mistake in medicine or nursing can result in a loss of life. You have got to be very, very careful. You also wonder how much is being done to make sure people follow procedure, both before and afterwards.”
The chief medical officer at Leeds Teaching Hospitals said there were a “small number” of cases where care was not good enough.
Dr Yvette Oade said: “We are one of the largest hospital trusts in the country and see nearly 1.5 million patients a year, of whom the vast majority receive safe, high quality care.
“Regrettably there are a small number of instances where hospital treatment falls short of this standard and in those cases we strive hard to put measures in place to ensure a similar mistake does not happen again.”
The figures were released to the YEP under the Freedom of Information Act by the NHS Litigation Authority.
NHS trusts pay contributions to the body and it then settles all legal claims against them on their behalf. Between 2010 and 2013, 391 negligence claims were lodged involving Leeds hospitals and 280 from patients at the Mid Yorkshire trust. There were also eight involving Leeds and York Partnerships NHS Foundation Trust, which runs mental health services, and three regarding Leeds Community Healthcare NHS Trust.
The figures do not include cases for non-clinical claims, such as accidents on NHS premises.
This article is courtesy from Yorkshire Evening Post.
In March 2004, N K Srivastava referred to an advertisement and took his pregnant wife to Sarvodaya Hospital and Trauma Centre at Vaishali for her delivery. It was after a premature baby was born to the couple that the hospital confessed that it did not have a nursery ICU and referred the Srivastavas to another hospital.
The baby was shifted to Safdarjung Hospital but was again denied admission to the nursery ICU. Admitted to the general ward, the baby caught an infection and died within a month. Ten years later, the Delhi State Consumer Dispute Redressal Commission asked the Vaishali hospital to pay the couple Rs 2.2 lakh compensation.
The State consumer forum held that both the hospitals were guilty of medical negligence. "Out of greed, they admitted the complainant's wife to deliver a premature baby — seven-and-half months old, weighing 1.28 kg with undeveloped lungs — and then referred the baby to another hospital with nursery facility. thus depriving the newborn baby of immediate necessary facilities. This, in our considered view, amounts to gross medical negligence," a two-member panel of the Commission observed on December 10.
The Commission also found Safdarjung Hospital to be guilty of denying the baby access to the nursery.
The counsel representing Safdarjung Hospital had argued that it was "the policy of the hospital" to not admit "outside babies" to their nursery for fear of spreading infection to other babies. The Commission rejected this contention observing: "Badly needed facility was denied on the basis of arbitrary, arrogant and discriminatory policy of the Hospital, which is totally unacceptable to us. We are, therefore, convinced that both hospitals were guilty of gross medical negligence."
However, only Sarvodaya Hospital was asked to pay the compensation. No penalty was imposed on Safdarjung Hospital based on a 1995 Supreme Court verdict, which stated that in cases where treatment is free, the service would not fall within the ambit of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986.
This article is courtesy from the Indian Express.
More than £100m has been paid out for clinical negligence and personal injury cases by the NHS in Wales in the past three years.
New figures released by six of the seven Welsh health boards and the ambulance service show £117.6m has been paid out in compensation since 2010.
The information, which was provided following a freedom of information request by the Welsh Liberal Democrats, comes at a time when the NHS is under major financial strain.
The figures show that Abertawe Bro Morgannwg University Health Board (UHB) paid out £35.4m in the past three years, while Betsi Cadwaladr UHB paid £26.2m and Cardiff and Vale UHB paid out £23.1m.
Meanwhile, Cwm Taf Health Board paid out £14.5m, Hywel Dda paid £9.6m, Powys paid £6.1m and the ambulance service paid £2.3m.
For the majority of organisations, the figures remained steady for each year. However, some were hit with a few single big claims.
Kirsty Williams, leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats, said: “NHS staff work exceptionally hard in what are often very difficult circumstances. However, the NHS as an organisation has often been too slow to learn from its mistakes. Our health service will only improve if lessons are learnt.
“The response to our freedom of information requests reveals that sadly lessons haven’t been learnt quick enough. Local health boards continue to pay out millions of pounds a year due to clinical negligence.
“Over £117m is a huge amount of money that could be better spent elsewhere in the health service, for example to employ more nurses or invest in new medicines. When our NHS is under an increasing amount of pressure, with finite resources, it simply can’t afford to be making these huge pay-outs.”
Stephen Webber, head of medical negligence at High James, said: “It takes just a small number of serious cases of medical negligence to significantly affect the figures but it should always be remembered what a severe impact on someone’s life that is caused in such a claim.
“It is essential that the NHS sits up and learns lessons by becoming more open, conducting proper investigations and following the recommendations that have been clearly set out in the Francis Report to ensure that health care provision to the public is improved and that unnecessary suffering is eradicated. The devastation that medical negligence can cause to an individual and their families cannot be underestimated. The best way to reduce these figures is to reduce the amount of sub standard treatment being provided.”
Jane Rogers, a partner at Harding Evans, also said it was vital that lessons were learned.
She added: “Mistakes causing serious injuries are very costly to the NHS, mainly because of the care, aids and adaptations to housing that will be required to try and make life more comfortable for those injured.”
The Welsh Government said arrangements had been put in place to make sure lessons were learned from any mistakes.
A spokeswoman said: “Every day the NHS cares for thousands of patients safely and without incident, but if things go wrong, NHS organisations must investigate what happened and do what they can to put the matter right for the person concerned.
“If it is found that care was not of an expected standard then patients should be entitled to redress, including financial compensation where appropriate.
“The area of clinical negligence and compensation is complex, with the value of claim settlements affected by both the volume of claims and the value of awards.
“It can only take a very small number of high value cases to make the amounts vary considerably year to year. However, there has been an increase in the volume of clinical negligence claims across the UK; in England in 2012-13, there was a 10.8% rise in volume.
“The Welsh Government has put in place a number of important arrangements as part of its Putting Things Right policy to ensure that there is better, open and transparent investigation of concerns, and that lessons are learned.
“This, together with 1000 Lives Plus, the NHS national improvement programme and other initiatives, demonstrates a strong commitment in Wales to improve services, to prevent mistakes and to learn lessons.”
This article is courtesy from Wales Online.
Almost 150 NHS patients have been harmed by incidents that should never happen, according to new figures - including the wrong patient receiving heart surgery, patients given overdoses and a woman who had her fallopian tube removed instead of her appendix.
Official statistics for a six month period show that the major blunders include 37 cases of patients who underwent surgery on the wrong part of the body.
In one case, the wrong patient was given a heart procedure.
One woman had the wrong fallopian tube removed during an ectopic pregnancy, probably rendering her infertile, and another had a fallopian tube removed instead of her appendix.
The wrong patient was given an invasive colonoscopy to check their bowel, while in four cases operations were carried out on the wrong teeth, and in other cases injections were given to the wrong eye.
In 69 cases, surgical instruments, needles swabs, specimen retrieval bags were left inside the body.
The figures disclose for the first time the number of incidents in each NHS hospital, and the types of blunders - some of which have either killed or seriously harmed patients.
In one incident, a drill guide block was left inside the patient’s body.
In another case, the patient died as a result of failure to monitor their oxygen levels, while one woman died from heavy bleeding following a planned Caesarean section.
Another had the wrong type of gas given, resulting in the patient’s death or severe harm, and one patient underwent surgery intended for someone else “due to incorrect results filed in notes”.
In total 21 patients were given the wrong implant or prosthesis. Seven patients were given the wrong dose of chemotherapy, resulting in harm, and five died or suffered severe harm after feeding tubes were inserted incorrectly by NHS staff.
In more than five cases, patients were given overdoses of drugs, with a weekly dose given in a single day.
Until now, only national totals were published.
The 148 incidents in six months suggests figures are “broadly comparable” to previous years, NHS England said, with 325 events in the previous 12 months.
Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation trust recorded the highest number of incidents - four in six months, with two patients “retaining foreign objects” one suffering wrong site surgery and one being given the wrong type of prosthesis or implant during surgery.
Nine more trusts recorded three incidents each during the period. They were The Royal Wolverhampton NHS trust, West Middlesex University NHS trust, South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation trust, Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS trust, Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS trust, Barts Health NHS trust, University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS trust, Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation trust and Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals NHS Foundation trust.
Dr Mike Durkin, National Director of Patient Safety at NHS England, said: “Awareness in the NHS of these issues has never been greater and the quality of our surgical procedures has never been better. It follows that the risk of these things happening has never been smaller.
“Every single never event puts patients at risk of harm which is avoidable. People who suffer severe harm because of mistakes can suffer serious physical and psychological effects for the rest of their lives, and that should never happen to anyone who seeks treatment from the NHS.”
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said: “We are determined to see the NHS become a world leader in patient safety - with a safety ethos and level of transparency that matches the airline industry.
“The publication of this data is a real step forward towards making this happen.”
This article is courtesy from The Telegraph.
One of Northern Ireland's top dentists reassured a woman with mouth cancer that her tumour was benign, a hearing has heard.
Professor Philip Lamey (above), a dentist at Belfast's Royal Victoria Hospital, misdiagnosed a cancerous growth in her mouth, mistaking it for a much less serious condition, stated regulators.
The patient had been referred to him with frictional keratosis.
Professor Lamey then failed to arrange a follow-up appointment in time to review her condition, later revealed to be cancer.
The allegations were put to a Practice Committee by the General Dental Council in a hearing held inLondon yesterday.
Professor Lamey faced a total of 46 charges of clinical negligence relating to 33 patients. Concerns were raised after a number of patients developed cancers that could have been caught earlier.
In total, 135 of his patients at the School of Dentistry at the RVH had to be recalled amid fears any cancers could have been missed.
Thirty-five of his patients were later diagnosed and four died.
A panel from the GDC's Practice Committee heard how the dentist had diagnosed a lesion as frictional keratosis, despite the patient being a smoker.
Prof Lamey faced two charges for his care of the patient, known as Patient 23, for failing to make any follow-up appointments and failing to maintain adequate records. Addressing the panel, counsel for the GDC, Mr David Bradly said: "A follow-up was required. I put it to (witness) Prof Challacombe that you would make arrangements to be reviewed as appropriate.
"The answer was 'I think so yes'. "(There were) no follow-up arrangements made at all with respect to Patient 23."
Mr Bradly summarised Prof Lamey's notes, saying to the court: "It refers to traumatic ulceration, patient reassured of the benign nature of this."
Prof Stephen Challacombe is an expert witness for Prof Lamey.
Mr Bradly criticised evidence given by the witness, suggesting he had read into Prof Lamey's notes "too closely".
In written evidence Prof Challacombe had defended some of Prof Lamey's decisions not to carry out biopsies on patients, although this changed in court.
The case was adjourned.
This article is courtesy from the Belfast Telegraph.
