PATIENTS PAID £224M
THE NHS has paid £224million in compensation to patients who have lost limbs or eyesight due to botched care in the past five years.
Amputations were needed by 520 patients, while 250 were left blind and 151 suffered cosmetic injuries.
The bills from these types of cases are costing the NHS more than
£120,000 every day.
The biggest group of claimants were people needing amputations.
Payouts totalled
£161m, meaning the average amount for the loss of an arm, foot or leg was more than
£300,000. Patients who lost their sight due to poor care were paid
£58m, with the average compensation cheque almost £250,000.
The average claim for cosmetic disfigurement was around £33,000 as a total of £5m was claimed.
Joyce Robins, of Patient Concern, said: “It is absolutely unbelievable that you go into hospital for care and then you end up suffering more.
“Much of the problem is down to the system being overstretched.
“We just don’t seem to have enough people to look after patients.”
The incidents include a £250,000 settlement from Medway NHS Foundation Trust in Kent after a
THIS coming week is Psoriasis Awareness Week.
Here,
looks at the impact of the condition on sleep. man lost his leg. Ian Watts, a butcher from Rochester, had his leg amputated after a series of alleged medical blunders.
He was initially admitted to Medway Maritime Hospital in July 2004 suffering from an infection in his little toe.
Mr Watts, a diabetic, claimed the loss of his leg was due to a combination of shoddy nursing practice and the hospital’s failure to properly control his disease. Colin Fortune, already blind in one eye after a sporting accident, received a £2m payout when staff failed to properly monitor and treat him for problems in his other eye. He had been under the care of Arrowe Park Hospital in Liverpool. And in 2015 father-of-three Michael Stephenson, inset, won an undisclosed payout after he had to have his left leg amputated. It came after he suffered an infection following hip surgery at Southmead Hospital in Bristol. An NHS spokesman said: “NHS staff dealt with over two-and-a-half billion patient contacts over the last five years, and while incidents like these are thankfully extremely rare, it is vital that when they do happen hospitals understand what went wrong and take action to improve.”