M R Law has successfully recovered damages upon behalf of a man who suffered a permanent restriction of the use of his fingers due to the failure of the hospital to diagnose he had suffered a tendon injury.

The man attended his local hospital Emergency Department following a cut to his hand from a sword. The hospital dismissed the cut as a “superficial wound” before cleaning and glueing the wound and discharging him.

Over the following few days he continued to experience problems moving his fingers and the problems persisted before he was eventually referred back to his hospital by his GP almost 3 months after his original attendance where the tendon injury was finally diagnosed.

The delay in making the correct diagnosis caused him serious and permanent consequences including the loss of the full function and ability to flex his fingers.

Robert Barker, head of Medical Negligence at M R Law comments: “It should have been a relatively straightforward matter for the hospital to identify the tendon injury when our client first attended at the Emergency Department, or at the very least, put in place measures for reaching the correct diagnosis. Their failure to do so on this occasion was a clear breach of their duty of care.

Whilst those working in A&E departments sometimes work under almost intolerable pressure and the standard of care generally remains very good, sadly these incidents of misdiagnosis or failure to pick up obvious injuries occur far more often than they should. The consequences can then be severe for the patient who may be left with permanent problems that could have been avoided.

At least on this occasion we were able to resolve the matter quickly upon behalf of our client with the hospital’s admission of an error on their part.”

If you have suffered complications arising from misdiagnosis or failure to provide the correct tretament, please contact our specialist medical negligence team to speak directly to a qualified and experienced lawyer.