Richard Earle recovered
£130,000 from St George's Hospital in an accident and emergency negligence claim for
Matthew's family. Matthew died following a delay in treatment at
the hospital, which he had attended because he was having
difficulty breathing.
On 16 November 2002 Matthew began to suffer from a sore throat
and by 22:00 hours he had difficulty breathing. He was taken by
ambulance to St George's Hospital where he was seen by a nurse in
A&E.
The nurse failed to refer for appropriate treatment. Matthew
rapidly deteriorated and collapsed. There was a delay in commencing
resuscitation and sadly, Matthew was pronounced dead just
after midnight at the age of 51.
Matthew had been categorised as non-urgent and
directed to the minor injuries area. Significantly, the nurse
failed to act on the fact that the ambulance crew noted Matthew’s
airway as being partially obstructed.
During his admission, Matthew was unable to swallow
analgesia. By the time he was seen by the specialist
registrar, Matthew was so distressed that he quickly became
unconscious and suffered a cardiac arrest.
Resuscitation by bag, mask and CPR was commenced and an
anaesthetist was summoned. The anaesthetist had not been informed
of the arrest and therefore the urgency and there was a significant
delay before he arrived. Attempts to resuscitate Matthew were
unsuccessful.
In fact Matthew had been suffering from upper airway obstruction
caused by epiglottitis and he died as a result of the unrelieved
consequences of this condition.
Richard Earle pursued an
accident and emergency negligence
claim on behalf of Matthew's surviving family.
Following receipt of positive reports from an A&E consultant
and a cardiologist, a letter of claim was sent in July 2005.
In the letter of response the trust admitted liability, leaving
only the amount of compensation in issue.
An offer made by the defendant of £75,000 was rejected.
Matthew had a previous history of hypertension and although he
probably would have worked until full retirement age he had a
reduced life expectancy of around 10 years.
Proceedings were issued in the High Court on 7 November
2005.
At this time we made an offer to settle the claim in the sum of
£130,000, which was accepted.
The case was initially privately funded superseded by Legal Aid
subject to a contribution paid by Matthew's mother, which
was returned to her in full upon recovery of costs from the
defendants.
For further information or if you have an accident and emergency negligence claim,
call Richard Earle on 020
7861 4041 or email richard.earle@ffw.com
You can discuss your accident and emergency
negligence claim with any member of our
medical negligence team on
freephone 0800 358 3848, email personalinjury@ffw.com
or complete our short enquiry form.