4th May 2023 – Our client Mr T from Whitstable instructed Fairweathers after being diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. His grievance was that he had attended Accident & Emergency at Queen Elizabeth Queen Mother Hospital, Margate 11 months before his diagnosis and a chest x-ray taken at the time failed to trigger appropriate investigations. Very sadly Mr T died shortly after instructing us and his widow carried on with the claim in order to obtain answers on his behalf.As always, we obtained Mr T’s medical records and then instructed various medical experts to explain what happened and provide opinions.
It was discovered that the original x-ray taken whilst Mr T was in A&E had been auto reported and there was no written evaluation from a radiologist. As a result Mr T missed out on the opportunity to be referred for investigations which would have diagnosed lung cancer 11 months earlier than the date of his actual diagnosis. This meant that very sadly he could not be offered curative treatment.
A Letter of Claim was sent to East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust and sensibly the Trust admitted breach of duty. The claim was valued and the parties agreed a substantial settlement for Mr T’s widow in recognition that he was only 63 years old when he died – with his life considerably shortened as a result of avoidable hospital error.
Mrs T accepted £150,000 in compensation.
Steve Evans, senior Clinical Negligence Solicitor, with conduct of the case commented:
“This is a tragic case and it is very much hoped East Kent Hospitals has implemented the necessary changes around the auto-reporting of imaging to ensure that this does not happen to another patient. I am very pleased that Mrs T now has significantly greater financial security after persevering with her late husband’s claim”.
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