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Headford v Bristol & District Health Authority
(1995) 6 Med LR 01
Limitation — Disability — Abuse of process — Court's inherent jurisdiction — Delay of 28 years before initiation of proceedings — Plaintiff throughout under disability — Delay due to failure to act by those caring for plaintiff — Defendant prejudiced by unavailability of evidence, change in medical practice and change in insurance arrangements
Morrison and Others v Forsyth
(1995) 6 Med LR 06
Professional liability — General practitioner — Duty to visit patient — Patient with sore throat, virtually unable to speak, with difficulty in swallowing and breathing — Doctor's reception telephoned by neighbour — Whether message passed on to doctor — Patient's death due to obstruction of larynx caused by acute synergetic gangrene — Deceased not a patient of doctor's practice — Whether doctor negligent in failing to visit patient and to ask sufficient questions to elicit deceased's symptoms
Bowers v Harrow Health Authority
(1995) 6 Med LR 16
Professional liability — Obstetrics — Diagnosis of lie — Second twin suffering brain damage due to hypoxia — Whether registrar attempted breech extraction for transverse lie — Mother's claim for damages and, on her own behalf, in respect of psychological trauma — Whether mother's personal claim barred under Limitation Act 1980
Hopkins v Mackenzie
(1995) 6 Med LR 26
Limitation — Negligence — Medical negligence action struck out — Action by patient in contract and negligence against solicitor — Whether patient had no cause of action in negligence until medical negligence action was actually struck out — Whether patient had a cause of action when summons to strike out was issued
Whitfield v North Durham Health Authority
[1995] LS Law Med 32
Limitation — Knowledge — Discretion — Neurological injury caused by excision of lump reported to be malignant — Excised tissue found to be benign — Writ issued six years and nine months after date of operation — Whether patient had knowledge of facts underlying complaint against health authority — Whether judge erred in treating earlier writ as determinative, by itself, of knowledge — Whether judge's discretion was misdirected — Whether inequitable to allow plaintiff to take advantage of default of own solicitors — Effect of prejudice
Corrigan v Methodist Hospital
(1995) 6 Med LR 40
Professional liability — Orthopaedics — Lumbar fusion surgery — Patient's action arising out of use of plate and pedicle screw system and alleged failure to diagnose and treat tumour — Whether prempted by federal medical device amendments to Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act — Whether plaintiff failed to state claim for civil conspiracy under Pennsylvania law
Tucker v Tees Health Authority
(1995) 6 Med LR 54
Professional liability — Gynaecologist — Unnecessary laparotomy — Diagnosis of ovarian cyst — Whether negligent to proceed to laparotomy without ultrasound scan — Whether negligent to advise patient after scan that she was pregnant with live baby when baby may have been dead
Joyce v Wandsworth Health Authority
(1995) 6 Med LR 60
Professional liability — Cardiology registrar — Diagnosis and treatment — Brachial cardiac catheterisation — Suturing error causing vascular complications — Repair/reconstruction operations carried out — Whether brachial artery was wholly or partially occluded on completion of the procedure — Whether signs and symptoms such that surgeon should have appreciated that circulation in patient's right arm was compromised — Whether patient should not have been discharged from the hospital until the circulation had been restored to normal — Whether registrar should have called for assistance of vascular surgeons
Glass v Cambridge Health Authority
(1995) 6 Med LR 91
Professional liability — Anaesthesia — Exploratory laparotomy — Pulse oximeter alarmed — Anaesthetist checking ECG machine and switching pulse oximeter off on basis that it was false alarm — Cleaning of wound with hydrogen peroxide — Patient suffering cardiac arrest whilst still under anaesthesia — Whether res ipsa loquitur applied — Whether negligence on part of anaesthetist established — Whether cardiac arrest was caused not by hypoxia, but gas embolism resulting from use of hydrogen peroxide — Evidence — Res ipsa loquitur — Evidential burden on defendant
De Freitas v O'Brien and Connolly
(1995) 6 Med LR 108
Professional liability — Orthopaedic surgeon — Negligence — Diagnosis and treatment — Nerve root compression — Exploratory surgery — Whether orthopaedic surgeon was negligent in performing operations when there was no clear clinical or radiological evidence to substantiate requirement for operation to take place — Whether there is now a recognised sub-speciality of spinal surgery which should be judged by its own standards
R v Her Majesty's Coroner for Kent (Maidstone District) ex p Johnstone
(1995) 6 Med LR 116
Coroner — Inquest — Application to set aside — Death in custody of patient subject to compulsory detention under Mental Health Act — Pathologist's original post-mortem reports stating cause of death as “neuroleptic malignant syndrome” (NMS) — Pathologist giving evidence at inquest that deceased died of acute exhaustive mania and that by giving cause of death as NMS he did not intend to convey that neuroleptic drugs administered to deceased had anything to do with death — Refusal by coroner to adjourn inquest — Verdict of death by natural causes — Whether inquest should be set aside — Whether costs should follow event where applicant was successful
Hay v Grampian Health Board
(1995) 6 Med LR 128
Nurse — Negligence — Duty of care — Patient suffering from depressive illness — Previously attempted suicide in same hospital — Patient proceeding from ward to toilet area — Patient found hanging by scarf from shower tap — Patient resuscitated but suffered irreversible brain damage — Whether res ipsa loquitur applicable — Whether management and handling of patient by hospital staff was negligent where patient was under regime of close observation
Hepworth v Kerr
[1995] LS Law Med 135
Limitation — Knowledge — Expert advice — Whether plaintiff had taken all reasonable steps to obtain, and where appropriate to act on, advice — Paraplegia allegedly caused by negligent administration of anaesthetic — Diagnosis in 1979 operation notes of anterior spinal artery thrombosis rejected — Opinion by patient's neurologist that operation had nothing to do with case — Solicitors asking for medical notes in 1987 and obtaining expert's report that patient's condition was caused by anterior spinal artery thrombosis — Action commenced within three years of patient knowing that what he had suffered could be consequence of operation — Whether any competent solicitor would and should have asked for notes
Hepworth v Kerr
(1995) 6 Med LR 139
Professional liability - Anaesthetist - Technique - Hypotensive anaesthesia - Patient's blood pressure reduced to very low levels to provide surgeon with relatively blood-free operating field - Patient suffering from anterior spinal artery syndrome (ASAS) - Whether anaesthetist acted reasonably - Whether hypotension caused or materially contributed to patient's ASAS - Whether specific risk of ASAS reasonably foreseeable
DM v TD
(1995) 6 Med LR 173
Administration of justice — Australia — Anonymity of parties — Person suing medical practitioner alleging medically acquired HIV infection or AIDS — Whether court should make order permitting anonymity of plaintiff and defendant — Whether plaintiff would be reasonably deterred from exercising right to sue — Embarrassment caused by disclosure of person's name — Plaintiff and family might be subjected to unwanted, unreasonable or intrusive media attention — Public Health Act 1991 — Medical practitioner might suffer financial disadvantage or personal disadvantage
Fox v Riverside Health Trust
(1995) 6 Med LR 181
Mental health — Medical treatment — Anorexia nervosa — Order for compulsory feeding under Mental Health Act — Whether order was interim order and should be set aside
Muzio v North West Herts Health Authority
(1995) 6 Med LR 184
Professional liability — Anaesthetist registrar — Standard of care — Spinal anaesthetic — Dural tap — Piercing of dura by guide needle — Resulting escape of cerebrospinal fluid causing patient to develop severe spinal headaches — Whether penetration of dura was caused by any negligence on part of anaesthetist registrar — Whether post-operative care negligently defective in that blood patch not administered
Hipwood v Gloucester Health Authority
(1995) 6 Med LR 187
Practice — Discovery — Relevant documents — Medical products liability action — County Courts Act 1984 section 53 — Whether ambiguous — Whether court should be arbiter of relevancy of documents — Whether court should order production of documents to defendants” legal and medical advisers
Jacobs v Great Yarmouth & Waveney Health Authority
(1995) 6 Med LR 192
Professional liability — Anaesthesia — Alleged awareness of pre-operative procedures causing mental injury — Whether judge entitled, on medical evidence, to conclude that plaintiff's memory, after she had come round from anaesthetic, would be likely to be unreliable; or that plaintiff would have become unconscious after she had received nitrous oxide for two minute period — Whether plaintiff's memory could only be explained in terms of being pre-operative memory — Applicability of res ipsa loquitur
Walton v Gardiner
(1995) 6 Med LR 200
Jurisdiction — Stay of action — Professional misconduct proceedings — Disciplinary proceedings against medical practitioners in 1986 before statutory medical tribunal stayed by court — Further disciplinary proceedings in 1991 following report by Royal Commissioner — Whether NSW Court of Appeal's supervisory jurisdiction extended to making order staying proceedings in tribunal on abuse of process grounds — Circumstances not giving rise to estoppel
Judge v Huntingdon Health Authority
(1995) 6 Med LR 223
Professional liability — Oncologist — Whether surgeon was negligent in failing to detect 5 mm lump in patient's breast — Lump found by patient and her general practioner — Whether surgeon should have arranged himself to see patient again — Whether failure to make neither fine needle biopsy nor ultrasound available to surgeon was negligent — Causation
De Martell v Merton and Sutton Health Authority
(1995) 6 Med LR 234
Limitation — Knowledge — Constructive knowledge — Whether special circumstances of conception made it reasonable for plaintiff with atheotic cerebral palsy not to investigate circumstances of birth — Whether court should exercise discretion in favour of plaintiff — Prejudice — Professional liability - Midwife — Negligence - No descent for eight hours and caput plus plus — Whether midwife should have called in doctor of at least registrar status — Causation — Cerebral palsy — Whether plaintiff had established, on balance of probabilities, that his condition of atheotic cerebral palsy was caused by negligence during birth
Reilly v Merseyside Regional Health Authority
(1995) 6 Med LR 246
Damages — Negligence — Normal human emotions — Husband, aged 61, and wife, aged 68, trapped in hospital lift due to negligence of health authority — Suffering from apprehension and fear, discomfort and shortness of breath — No recognised psychiatric injury — Whether judge erred in referring to physical injury alternatively relying upon “psychological injury or illness”
Ealing Hammersmith and Houslow Family Health Services Authority v Shukla
(1995) 6 Med LR 249
General practitioner — Employment — Sexual discrimination — Doctor applying for vacancy in medical practice — Whether “employment” — Whether statutory procedure for filling vacancy “arrangements” made by family health services authority
R v Cambridge Health Authority, ex parte B (a minor)
(1995) 6 Med LR 250
Administrative law — Certiorari — Funding of medical treatment — Decision by health authority not to fund further medical treatment of child, aged 10 1/2, suffering from myeloid leukaemia — Opinion by child's doctors that no further treatment could usefully be administered — Differing opinion by expert in field — Certiorari granted on grounds that decision was flawed — Whether judge's criticisms of authority's decision were valid
Richardson v Kitching
(1995) 6 Med LR 257
Professional liability — General practitioner — Duty of care — ENT — Patient presenting with longstanding deafness — Duty to refer to specialist — Incorrect diagnosis in September 1983 and September 1984 of middle ear problem — Patient diagnosed in February 1985 as suffering from acoustic neuroma — Operation resulting in death of patient — Whether general practitioner failed (1) to implement own advice to patient to see ENT specialist; (2) to establish adequate history regarding deafness with which patient presented — Causation
Djemal v Bexley Health Authority
(1995) 6 Med LR 269
Accident and emergency — Senior houseman — Diagnosis — Casualty patient admitted with difficulty in swallowing — Diagnosis of viral upper respiratory tract infection — Patient sent home — Patient deteriorating rapidly and readmitted to hospital — Diagnosis of epiglottitis — Resulting brain damage — Whether houseman negligent — Causation — Standard of care and skill to be applied in accident and emergency diagnosis — Failure to notice patient's spitting and pooling of saliva due to inability to swallow; failure to obtain proper history; and consequent failure to obtain information which would have induced reasonably competent casualty officer to have retained patient for further investigation by others
R v Secretary of State for Health, ex parte Federation of Medical Services
(1995) 6 Med LR 280
National Health Service — Judicial review — General practitioner co-operatives — Reimbursement of expenses by family health service authorities — Whether statement in Circular issued by Secretary of State for Health could be challenged by judicial review
M v Ryan
(1995) 6 Med LR 285
Practice and procedure — Discovery — Privilege — Medical records — Action by patient against psychiatrist alleging repeated sexual assaults and resulting harm — Third party psychiatrist treating patient ordered to deliver up medical records of patient — Patient not intending to call third party as witness — Exercise of court's discretion under rule 26(11) of the British Columbia Supreme Court rules — Whether documents in patient's possession or control were privileged — Whether physician had personal claim for privilege — might have could only be from harm which would come to the physician; there was nothing in Dr Parfitt's affidavits which would permit her to assert a personal claim of privilege
Vernon v Bloomsbury Health Authority
(1995) 6 Med LR 297
Professional liability — Cardiology — Endocarditis — Gentamicin therapy — Ototoxicity — Risk of side effects on ear and kidneys — Defence contention that vestibular damage was caused despite due care — Whether gentamicin appropriate choice for treatment of condition — Whether dosage a proper one — Effect of manufacturer's and formulary guidelines — Whether doctors negligent in method of administration of gentamicin, duration of treatment or adequacy of monitoring of treatment — Whether burden on plaintiff to establish causation where defendants failed to plead unavoidable accident and were unable to adduce examples of cases where ototoxicity had occurred despite careful monitoring
Smith v Salford Health Authority
(1995) 6 Med LR 311
Damages — Tetraplegia — Neurosurgery — Occipital/cervical fusion — Plaintiff's condition congenital — Plaintiff rendered tetraplegic — Ankylosing spondylitis diagnosed following trial of liability issues
Gregory v Ferro (GB) Ltd and Others
[1995] LS Law Med 321
Limitation — Personal injuries — Constructive knowledge — Plaintiff twisting her foot in August 1985 — Alleged negligent acts or omissions by medical practitioners in August/September 1985 — Plaintiff thinking that she had sprained leg and recurrence of arthritis — Actual knowledge on June 29, 1988 that rupture of Achilles tendon had caused pain and swelling — Writ issued on June 28, 1991 — Whether plaintiff must have known that her injury was significant — Whether judge correctly concluded that prejudice to defendants of allowing action to proceed would be greater than prejudice to plaintiff if it did not
Ostick v Wandsworth Health Authority
[1995] LS Law Med 338
Limitation — Medical negligence action — Date of knowledge (actual or constructive) — Plaintiff patient not pushing for explanation on grounds that it would compromise medical treatment which she was receiving — Whether sufficient for plaintiff to know that she had received an injury, and that injury had not healed — Whether necessary for plaintiff also to know that there was causative link between treatment or lack of treatment and injury — Whether plaintiff justified in waiting to see if her treatment was successful before seeking advice
Crawford v Dalley and Royal Marsden Hospital
(1995) 6 Med LR 343
Abuse of process — Res judicata — Cause of action and issue estoppel — Private patient undergoing radiotherapy treatment in 1980 — Patient dissatisfied with result of treatment — Payment of hospital's account witheld — County court proceedings by hospital in 1983 — Defence and counterclaim for £500 medical costs by patient — Judgment by default against patient in 1984 — Patient becoming seriously ill when radionecrosis manifested itself in 1991 — High Court writ issued against hospital in 1994 — Whether estoppel arose in respect of High Court claim from 1984 judgment
Delaney v Southmead Health Authority
(1995) 6 Med LR 355
Professional liability — Anaesthetist — Res ipsa loquitur — Cholocystectomy performed under general anaesthetic — Operation lasting 45 minutes — Patient sustaining lesion of brachial plexus — Judge's decision that anaesthetist was not negligent — Whether decision accorded with probabilities — Whether defendant had established exercise of reasonable care
Waters v West Sussex Health Authority
(1995) 6 Med LR 362
Professional liability — Neurosurgeon — Decompression of spine to correct prolapsed thoracic disc — Method of performing operation unique in its combination of procedures — Patient rendered paraplegic — Patient warned of risk of paralysis in operation — Whether surgeon's method of operating was negligent — Body of professional opinion
Newell and Newell v Goldenberg
(1995) 6 Med LR 371
Professional liability — Sterilisation — Vasectomy — Late recanalisation — Whether vasectomist negligent in failing to warn of risk in 1985 — Responsible body of medical opinion — Causation — Whether husband and wife would have agreed to sterilisation in any event
R v Yorkshire Regional Health Authority, ex parte Suri
(1995) 6 Med LR 376
National Health Service — Pharmaceutical services — Move of premises — Purpose of National Health Service legislation — Whether to secure adequate pharmaceutical services for persons in neighbourhood — Effect that move might have on competitive pharmacist — Definition of “neighbourhood” — Whether oral hearing necessary
Breen v Williams
(1995) 6 Med LR 385
Medical records — Access by patient — Female patient involved in litigation against US manufacturer of silicone breast implants — By order of US District Court, patient required to elect whether to opt into US class action against manufacturer — Patient seeking access to information in files of Australian treating doctor — Doctor offered to provide summary report but declined access to files unless patient agreed to release him from any claim in relation to his treatment — Patient refused to agree to condition — Summons for declarations and orders dismissed by Equity Division of Supreme Court (Bryson J) — Appeal to Court of Appeal — Equity — Fiduciary duties — Medical practitioner and patient — Medical records — Whether fiduciary duty existed to provide patient involved in substantial litigation against manufacturer of breast implant with access to information in original medical records — Whether such access would be ordered upon basis of fiduciary obligation — Exclusion of records and information (a) created solely for benefit of practitioner's practice; (b) where disclosure would cause serious harm to physical or mental health of patient; and (c) where disclosure would found action for breach of confidence — Medical practitioner offered access on condition that patient executed release from personal liability — Consideration by Court of Appeal of whether breach of fiduciary duty was established