Personal Injury Claims Bristol Blog

A senior prison officer, who was working in the Segregation Unit at HMP Swaleside in Kent’s Eastchurch, has finally received compensation following being forced out of his job due to a violent attack by an inmate.  Iain Fleming suffered horrendous physical injuries as well as post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) whilst working in the canteen.  An inmate lunged at one of his colleagues brandishing two sharpened plastic knives, and attempted to stab him in the head.  Mr Fleming rushed to restrain the inmate and found himself instead being stabbed and attacked.  The inmate stabbed the officer five times, and at one point tried to gouge out his eye.  He sustained stab wounds to his eye, head, arms, shoulder and chest.  In the months that followed, he also developed PTSD.  The officer managed to fight off the symptoms of the PTSD over time, however the injury sustained to his shoulder was so severe that he was unable to return to work as a prison officer.

A 60-year-old Salisbury man, originally from Sardinia in Italy, has received a six figure sum in compensation for developing the fatal disease, mesothelioma whilst working as a chef.  Mr Luigi Pes had moved to Britain, aged 31, in 1982.  He had been working for La Gondola Italian Restaurant in Fisherton Street in Salisbury where he was exposed to asbestos from the seals on the pizza oven and in the store room ceiling.  Mr Pes was not warned by his employers about the dangers that working with asbestos could pose to his health.  When he sought medical advice about a long-term chest infection, it was found that he had contracted the asbestos related disease.  Mesothelioma is an incurable cancer affecting the lining of the lungs.

A couple from Leeds have been awarded compensation following a head on collision whilst on tour in Italy.  The couple, Angela and Simon Howland, were on the holiday of a lifetime, cruising the Mediterranean when the collision occurred.  Their tour bus was travelling between Sorrento and Pompeii and was travelling through a tunnel when it was forced to swerve to avoid a head on collision with another vehicle.   The bus, which was transporting tourists from the cruise, then crashed into the tunnel wall causing substantial personal injury to the driver and many of the passengers.  The driver of the on-coming vehicle was killed at the scene.

A former pipefitter who approached his union following a diagnosis of the incurable lung disease, asbestosis, has been awarded compensation after winning his claim against a former employer.  64-year-old Michael Adcock developed the disease after having worked for 18 years for a Leicestershire engineering company refurbishing boilers that had asbestos in their insulation.  As part of his job, Mr Adcock had to remove insulation from boilers manually which caused asbestos dust to be in the air and then settle on his skin, hair and clothing.  It was learned that he had worked at the company for four years before being offered any protection for breathing in the dust or protective clothing.

An investigation carried out under the Freedom of Information act, has revealed that one in five of the radiotherapy machines being used in hospitals throughout England, are past their scrappage date.  The European Society of Radiology recommends that in order to keep up with advances in technology and offer the best treatment possible, machines should not operate for more than 10 years.  Older machines can be putting patients at serious risk, according to the report, as lack of precision can be creating serious side effects that could cause irreversible harm.

A 33-year-old Yorkshire man has been rushed to hospital following a vicious attack in the Gleadless area yesterday afternoon.  Police were called to the area when it was reported that a Staffordshire bull terrier-crossbreed dog had mauled the man, who is as yet unnamed, inflicting injuries that a neighbour described as “terrible”.  He said: “I’ve never seen anything like it in my life”.   The victim has sustained serious injuries to his neck and was rushed to hospital where his condition is being described as critical.

Cumbrian woman, Kathleen Bellas, 54, from Shap was killed outright on 12 January by a foreign driver driving on the wrong side of the road.  Carlisle Crown Court heard how Ms Bellas’ Ford Focus collided with a lorry in an early morning road crash, and 52-year-old Adam Rybicki admits that he was in the wrong.  The collision took place on the A6.

North Bristol NHS Trust’s Bristol Southmead Hospital has been fined £1.2 million for consistently failing to achieve NHS targets to carry out specialist spinal surgery.  The NHS requires that patients requiring specialist spinal surgery should be treated within 18 weeks, however Bristol Southmead Hospital was found to be keeping patients waiting for more than a year.  The hospital has acknowledged the problem and stated that increased referral numbers coupled with a lack of specialist staff was the cause of the problem.

Support worker Rachel Portsmouth has been found guilty of placing her hands around the neck of 20-year-old Chante Johnson and of hitting her with a slipper.  Chante who has special needs and requires 24 hour care is a resident at Pegasus School, in Caldwell.  She suffers from severe autism and has great difficulty communicating.  She has no decision making capacity and a very limited awareness of danger.  She can also be prone to violent outbursts.  The offence took place on 21 February 2015.

Services at Wye Valley NHS Trust Hereford Hospital have been found to be “inadequate” upon inspection by the Trust Development Authority in October 2014.  The inspection resulted in the hospital being placed in special measures, stating that particular concern was raised to medical care and emergency services.  In February of 2015 an improvement director was appointed by the Trust and a further announced inspection took place in September of 2015.  Yet a further inspection, this time unannounced, was carried out at the end of September and focus groups were held to discuss the areas of improvement required.

For over 150 years, district nurses have been supporting people in their own homes, keeping them out of hospital.  Official figures are showing, however, that the number of district nurses has fallen by 40% in the past 10 years.  The Health and Social Care Information Centre has reported that where a decade ago there were around 13000 district nurses working for the NHS in England, there are now fewer than 7500, many of whom are close to retirement age.  At the same time, the pressure on hospital accident and emergency departments is increasing, with attendances rising by approximately 50% in the past 10 years.  Nursing leaders are describing NHS community nursing in England as “lamentable”.

The Telegraph is warning skiers about the dangers of going on holiday without adequate insurance.  Injury sustained whilst skiing or snowboarding tends to be serious, such as broken bones, dislocations and damage to ligaments and with many ski resorts being in remote locations, the price of emergency medical transport can be extremely high.  The price of being caught without insurance, particularly in the US, can be exceptionally high and consideration must be given to personal liability, lost equipment, ski passes, lost days due to inclement weather as well as medical coverage.

A man from Saughall Massie has been awarded £2million in compensation after hospital staff failed to save the sight in his one working eye. 39-year-old Colin Fortune lost the sight in his right eye in 2001 following a sports accident. However, when doctors failed to monitor and treat his left eye, he was left completely blind. The father-of-four had already undergone an operation at Royal Liverpool Hospital when his remaining sight began to worsen, however it was not enough and the staff at Arrowe Park Hospital failed to save his remaining sight.

A lorry driver has been awarded £225K in compensation after GPs on two separate occasions failed to identify Cauda Equina Syndrome. 54-year-old Martyn Wall injured his back five years ago while repositioning road signs from his lorry. When he attended his GP practice, however, he was told it was muscle strain and was prescribed basic pain killers. Due to the delay in treatment for the Cauda Equina Syndrome – a crippling back condition affecting the nerve roots of the spinal canal – Mr Wall has been left in constant pain and with irreversible nerve damage. 

A Leicestershire Crown Court judge has praised a man after saving a four-year-old child from a serious dog attack. It was heard that the dog had clamped its jaws on the young girl’s face, so the man wrestled the dog off her and managed to tether it. It was heard that the Staffordshire bull terrier, Bullet, had escaped from its owner’s garden and attacked a few of the children playing in the street.

Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham has issued an apology to 90 year-old Margaret Slater after leaving her to lie on a trolley in the Accident and Emergency department on 11 November without food or water for 11 hours.  The dementia patient was taken to the hospital suffering from severe hallucinations and was seen by a nurse upon her arrival.  Three hours later she was seen by a doctor who said that she should be admitted to the hospital, however she was left where she was for a further eight hours before being moved to a ward.

A hospital trust has admitted to errors that resulted in the death of a newborn baby earlier this year. The baby girl died only two days after being born, with an investigation finding that she would have survived had her mother been given a caesarean section sooner. Delilah Hubbard died on 9 March in Leicester Royal Infirmary’s neonatal unit.

Recently released figures have revealed that councils have paid out millions of pounds in injury and compensation claims as a result of poor road and pavement conditions in Herts and Essex. In the last few years alone, thousands of drivers and pedestrians have reported injuries sustained as a result of road defects. Herts County Council (HCC) paid out a total of £1m in three years, where Essex County Council (ECC) paid out £1.4m, with hundreds of claims still unresolved.

The government has been urged to make changes to the way in which veterans are treated when diagnosed with mesothelioma – a cancer caused by asbestos exposure. Armed forces charities, senior military figures and politicians have all stepped forward in a bid to provide better support to veterans who were exposed to asbestos during their time in service, and have contracted mesothelioma as a result. They are demanding that all veterans will receive the same compensation as civilians, arguing that the government is currently breaching the Armed Forces Covenant.

Following an investigation carried out by Care Quality Commission, which uncovered unacceptable practices and abuse of patients, Clitheroe’s Calderstones Hospital, the UK’s only specialist hospital for patients with learning disabilities, will close.  Inspectors from the Care Quality Commission heavily criticised the hospital in December upon completion of a widespread review carried out by them.