Brachers secures £70,000 settlement after mother dies following hospital failure to medicate

Brachers recently acted for Mr C after his mother tragically died following a cardiac arrest due to a failure by the hospital to administer medication.

We were successful in securing compensation of £70,000 for our client in this complex medical negligence case.

The case

Our client’s mother, Mrs C, attended the emergency department of her local hospital following a review by her GP and consideration that she required immediate attention by A&E.

Mrs C had right sided chest pain and after examination, a differential diagnosis of chest pain due to muscular or pleuritic pain or a pulmonary embolism (a blood clot within the lungs) was considered.

A blood test was undertaken to check for a blood clot with the result noted to be high and ‘massively raised’.

The ED Registrar looking after Mrs C prescribed a single dose of Clexane however the dose was not recorded, and the administration time and frequency were also not stated. The Registrar asked for Mrs C to be weighed in order to complete the prescription before handing over to the medical team.

It transpired that Clexane was not administered and Mrs C later walked to the toilet, and on her return, she became breathless, suffering a cardiac arrest and ultimately died. The cause of death was recorded as pulmonary arterial thromboembolism found in all large and small branches of pulmonary arteries.

This was a complex case, but Brachers were able to establish that the Trust had failed to properly administer the medication, leading to Mrs C suffering a fatal cardiac arrest, and had the medication been properly administered Mrs C would have survived.

Harriet Humphrey and Andrew Bate of Brachers’ Clinical Negligence team acted for Mrs C’s son, successfully negotiating a settlement of £70,000.

More information

Brachers no longer acts on behalf of medical negligence claimants. We apologise for any inconvenience. If we have help with any other queries then please do get in touch.