Solicitor, Medical Negligence
We will refer to our client throughout this article as Ms H for the purposes of anonymity and client confidentiality. As Ms H’s husband had also passed away, her son, who we will refer to as Mark to maintain his privacy, was entitled to compensation for the medical negligence that his mother had experienced.
Ms H was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2021 and both she and her son Mark were devastated to hear that the NHS had missed indicative signs of this on an earlier x-ray. Sadly Ms H passed away, but if the indicative signs had been identified earlier, she could have had surgery and lived for longer. Mark was able to make a Medical Negligence claim with our help to get justice for his late mother.
Ms H had suffered with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) for many years. COPD is the name for a collection of lung diseases which gradually gets worse and can cause chronic coughing, chest tightness and shortness of breath. It includes emphysema which is damage to the air sacs in the lungs and chronic bronchitis, a long-term inflammation of the airways.
COPD is a common condition that mainly affects middle aged or older adults who smoke. Many people don’t realise that they have it. The breathing problems associated with COPD tend to get worse over time and can limit the day-to-day activities that a person is able to do independently.
According to the NHS, the main symptoms of COPD are:
Ms H took medication and used an inhaler to relieve her symptoms. However, in 2019 she noticed that her symptoms were getting worse.
She decided to seek advice from her GP who prescribed her with antibiotics, steroids and another inhaler. Unfortunately, this did not relieve her symptoms. As such, an x-ray was arranged for her in late 2019. She was informed afterwards that the results of the x-ray were normal.
However, her symptoms persisted and became much more severe during 2020. She was in contact with her GP and COPD nurses in relation to her symptoms during this time. Further antibiotics and steroids were prescribed to her which did not improve her condition, so another x-ray was arranged in January 2021.
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The X-Ray demonstrated a lesion, which is a region in an organ such as the lungs, that has suffered damage or abnormal change because of disease.
After a further scan, she was sadly diagnosed with lung cancer. The doctors told Ms H that the lesion was visible on her x-ray from two years prior and that an investigation would be undertaken in respect of this and how images were misinterpreted, leading to a missed opportunity for earlier diagnosis.
In Ms H’s case, it was particularly important that she was closely monitored because COPD increases the risk of lung cancer. COPD and lung cancer appear at the same time, rather than separately and the symptoms can be very similar.
Our client had a routine operation to have polyps removed from his bowel. However, his bowel was damaged during the procedure, with part of it breaking down and forming a perforation (a hole). After waking from the anaesthetic, our client was in extreme pain and suffering with a swollen abdomen.
Our client underwent surgery to reposition an undescended testicle when he was 2 years old but during the procedure, the surgeons failed to identify and protect the left inferior epigastric artery, which they then cut.
A woman underwent routine cervical screenings in 2007 and 2012, which both came back with negative results. However, independent medical assessments identified a missed cancerous tumour.
(n.d.). Lung Cancer. Retrieved from https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/lung-cancer/ (Accessed: 18/12/2023).
(n.d.). Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). Retrieved from https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/chronic-obstructive-pulmonary-disease-copd/ (Accessed: 18/12/2023).
Georgina is a Solicitor who works in our Medical Negligence team here at Simpson Millar, based in our Manchester office.
She is a committed and highly reliable Solicitor with a track record of supporting clients through the process of making a claim to achieve the best outcome for them. Georgina has experience working on many high-value cases with a range of circumstances and complexities from start to finish, where she reviews medical records, liaises with experts and gathers evidence in order to negotiate the best possible settlement for her clients.
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