Northampton General Hospital NHS Trust

2. Mrs E complains on behalf of her son, Mr N, that in April 2020, the Trust misdiagnosed his spinal injury following a serious road traffic accident. She is unhappy the Trust did not complete a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scan during his admission and discharged him 12 hours later, with no follow up treatment arranged.

3. Mr N received private treatment a few days after the accident and was advised there was further damage to his spine that the Trust had not diagnosed. Mrs E says if they did not seek a second opinion he would have been paralysed.

4. As an outcome to the complaint, Mrs E is seeking a financial remedy and service improvements.

5. What follows is our summary of events. We have not included all the details as those involved are already aware of this information. However, we have included this brief background to put this complaint in context.

6. Mr N was involved in a high-speed road traffic accident in April 2020, and the ambulance service took him to the Trust.

7. The Trust completed a Computerised Tomography (CT) scan and advised he had three rib fractures, and small undisplaced fractures around the L1 and L2 vertebrae. The Trust discharged Mr N the next day. This was 12 hours after he was admitted. It advised him to take paracetamol and to rest for six weeks.

8. Mrs E said that when her son got home his right arm was not working, he could not turn his head, and he was slumping to the right. A few days later, she sought verbal advice from a private doctor. They advised that because of the severity of the accident, he should have had an MRI, and they then arranged this for Mr N.

9. The results of the MRI scan showed additional injuries to Mr N’s spine that the Trust had not picked up. The private doctor then fitted Mr N with a brace. They advised that if this did not work he would need surgery, and there would be a risk of paralysis. They advised Mr N would need to rest for up to six months. Mr N had the brace on for 16 weeks and did not require surgery.

Management of Mr N’s injuries

11. The law says we cannot investigate a complaint where a person has (or had) the option to take legal action, unless we consider this is (or was) unreasonable in the circumstances. We have discussed this with Mrs E to understand the circumstances and the outcomes she wants to achieve for Mr N. We do not consider whether legal action would succeed but whether it would be a reasonable option to look in to.

12. Mrs E says the Trust should have performed an MRI scan when her son arrived at the Accident and Emergency Department, and it provided an incorrect diagnosis that could have left her son paralysed. She says that Mr N was discharged with no planned follow up care, and to this day, the Trust has not followed up or checked on how he is doing.

13. Clinical negligence takes place when a patient who underwent treatment becomes injured because of that treatment. Failure to carry out appropriate treatment could also amount to negligence. With this in mind, there is a potential clinical negligence claim with the Trust’s involvement in the care of Mr N.

14. One of the outcomes Mrs E is seeking for her son, is a financial remedy. Mrs E could not provide a figure on the amount she was hoping to achieve but commented that she was ‘trying to secure a future’ for her son. This indicates that it could be a significant amount and a financial remedy is something the courts can achieve if her claim is successful.

15. Mrs E had concerns that she did not want to pay for legal fees. We signposted her to the Citizens Advice Bureau, Law Society, the charity Action against Medical Accidents (AvmA), and an advocate so she could explore her options with organisations that are better suited to provide legal advice and assistance. Mrs E was open to exploring these organisations.

16. Mrs E is also seeking service improvements as an outcome to her complaint. Legal action can sometimes achieve other outcomes as a by-product of any decision that is made. If this does not happen, Mrs E can bring her complaint back to us for us to consider any outcomes the courts did not look at. However, she must do this as soon as reasonably possible because of our time limit, set in law, that says a complaint must be brought to us within 12 months of a complainant being aware of the issue.

17. We recognise the accident has had a profound impact on Mr N, and Mrs E is hoping to achieve a level of financial remedy to acknowledge this. We have seen nothing to suggest it would be unreasonable for Mrs E to pursue this outcome through legal proceedings. For this reason, we will take no further action on her complaint at this time.

1. We have carefully considered Mrs E’s complaint about Northampton General Hospital NHS Trust (the Trust). We were sorry to learn of the events leading up to Mr N’s accident and appreciate the difficult time the whole family has been through. We consider Mrs E could take legal action on the matter she has brought to us.