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Inadequate hospital supervision for mental health patients – £3,000 in compensation

Our client brought a clinical negligence claim against a hospital regarding the standard of nursing care she received.

Our client underwent a total abdominal hysterectomy and she was returned to the ward on the same day.

Our client was on the same ward as a patient with mental health difficulties who was observed by the nursing staff to wander between beds on the ward, to approach patients and to take food and drink from other patients’ bedsides.

The patient with mental health difficulties was unaccompanied and unsupervised when she got into bed with our client and pressed on our client’s post-procedure abdominal wound.

Despite shouting for help and pressing her call buzzer repeatedly, at least 5 times, it took several minutes for the nurses to come to our client’s assistance, during which time the other patient’s full weight was on our client’s fresh abdominal wound.

Our client found her abdominal wound very painful after this, as painful as it had been on the first pre-operative day. She suffered from delayed healing and worse scarring in the area leant on by the other patient.

It was alleged that the hospital failed to meet our client’s right to a safe environment, privacy and dignity in that another patient was allowed to climb into her bed and press on her abdominal wound.

As a result of this, our client suffered the distress, pain and suffering of the patient pressing on her abdominal wound, a delayed dischargeprolonged pain and suffering from her surgical scarcomplications with healing and the need for steri-strips and a worse outcome for the scarring.

Our client was successful in her clinical negligence claim and recovered the sum of £3,000 by way of compensation.

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