3. Mrs W says in January 2022 Local Care Direct, Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust (Mid Yorks Trust) and Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust (Leeds Trust) missed a fracture in Mr W’s left thigh.
4. Mrs W says because her son’s fracture was not diagnosed sooner, he experienced pain and distress.
5. Mrs W is asking for financial compensation.
6. Mrs W and her son went to the Leeds Trust on 2 January 2022 after he had an injury. It did an X-ray and said there was no fracture, he could go home and use crutches.
7. During the next few days Mr W had severe pain and swelling. Mrs W says she thought he was not getting better and asked for a second opinion from Mid Yorks Trust.
8. Mid Yorks Trust and Local Care Direct did an examination and looked at the X-ray of Mr W’s knee. The consultant said there was no fracture and they thought there may be some tissue damage. They arranged for Mr W to have a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan. An MRI is a scan that uses strong magnets and radio waves to get detailed images.
9. Mr W had the MRI on 9 January and Mid Yorks Trust found the fracture in his left thigh. Mr W stayed in hospital and had an operation soon after the MRI scan.
12. 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 W to understand her circumstances and the outcomes she wants. We do not consider whether legal action would succeed but whether it would be a reasonable option to look in to.
13. Mrs W says Mr W is afraid of going back to hospitals and says he was not listened to or taken seriously when he was experiencing pain. Mr W had a lot of pain and could not go upstairs to go to toilet and had to sleep on the sofa.
14. Mrs W and her husband say they feel bad as they told Mr W to keep active because doctors recommended this before the fracture was found.
15. Mrs W told us that before Mr W could have surgery, he needed treatment to straighten the bone because the break had not been treated and had got worse. She feels he may not have needed this if the fracture had been found sooner.
16. Mrs W could make a claim for clinical negligence to get the financial compensation she is looking for. We asked Mrs W how much compensation she wants and she did not know. We gave Mrs W a copy of our guide to financial compensation. We explained the maximum amount we may recommend based on the claimed failings and how Mrs W says they had been affected would not be more than £950. This is because Mr W’s fracture was found a week later so there was not a long delay.
17. Mrs W asked us what she should do if she thought the amounts offered were not enough for what Mr W had experienced. We suggested she get some legal advice and ask this. We did not see anything that would stop Mrs W from getting legal advice.
18. Mrs W can come back to us if this is not successful. Mrs W needs to contact us quickly if she needs to come back to us as we have time limits for looking at complaints.
1. The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman has carefully considered Mrs W’s complaint. We are sorry to hear of the pain and distress Mrs W’s son, Mr W, experienced and we understand this was a difficult time for them.
2. We are not investigating the complaint further as Mrs W can take legal action to achieve what she is looking for.