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Undiagnosed Fractures

If you or a member of your family has suffered as the result of a failure by a hospital to diagnose a fracture, our specialist personal injury lawyers may be able to help you claim compensation for clinical negligence. Contact us today on 0800 032 8511 for claim advice, or by completing a claim enquiry form online.

Undiagnosed Fractures
Clinical Negligence
Missed Scaphoid Fractures
Clinical Negligence Claims for Missed Fractures
Compensation
Our Personal Injury Lawyers

Successful Claims for Undiagnosed Fractures

Undiagnosed Fractures

Failure to diagnose a fracture can result in a lack of correct or timely treatment, potentially leading to unnecessary pain and suffering, incorrect healing and further problems with the injured area.

The later that a fracture is diagnosed, the more likely there are to be problems, for example if a bone begins to heal in the wrong position or a person has begun to use the affected body part when it should be kept immobile.

Sometimes this may mean that the treatment required is not as simple as it would have been.  For example, if surgery is necessary when a plaster cast may have fixed the problem had a timely diagnosis been made, the patient will go through more pain and disruption than necessary.

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Clinical Negligence

There are a number of reasons why a fracture may not be diagnosed straight away. Not all cases where medical staff fail to diagnose a fracture give rise to a claim, usually because the mistake is discovered before any damage is caused by the delay.

In order to make a personal injury compensation claim for a missed fracture, it has to be proven that the doctor failed to take the steps as reasonably required and that the delay in diagnosis caused further injury.

A missed fracture could be caused by doctor inexperience leading to no x-ray being arranged, for example, the misreading of an x-ray, or a report being filed away by mistake.

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Missed Scaphoid Fractures

A type of fracture that is often missed is to the scaphoid bone, located in the wrist near to the base of the thumb. This type of injury most often occurs as the result of a fall onto an outstretched hand. It is common in accidents involving young men where the hand and wrist are forced back.

Undiagnosed scaphoid fractures are more common because the bone is inside the joint, so there is less swelling and often no obvious deformity. Failure to treat the injury promptly can result in the fracture failing to unite, with serious complications such as arthritic conditions or permanent joint stiffness.

Because it is well known that these fractures can be difficult to detect, hospital doctors have specific guidelines on how x-rays should be carried out and checked and how to diagnose a patient who may have this type of injury. If these are not followed and the fracture goes unnoticed, you may have grounds to claim compensation.

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Clinical Negligence Claims for Missed Fractures

Anyone who has endured pain and suffering as the result of a medical misdiagnosis, that would not have occurred had the diagnosis been correct, may be entitled to claim compensation. An expert clinical negligence lawyer, such as those employed by The Legal Line, will be able to assess the merits of each individual case and advise accordingly.

The assistance of a specialist lawyer can be invaluable, as making a clinical negligence claim for an undiagnosed fracture is often complicated. They can collate all of the relevant evidence and advise on the best course of action.

In every case, medical evidence will be required. It is necessary to show that the person you are making a claim against owed you a duty of care, that they breached that duty of care (what is know in law as negligence), and that the resulting problem was a reasonably foreseeable consequence of that negligence.

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Compensation

There are two elements to a compensation award.

The first, called general damages, is for the pain and suffering you may have gone through and any loss of amenity (perhaps an inability to play sports, walk the dog or go shopping). The award for loss of amenity can be for a short period after your misdiagnosis or for ever if that is what the medical evidence supports.

Whereas the first element of compensation cannot make you better and can only really apologise, the second element of a compensation award, for your losses and expenses,
is known as special damages and aims to put you back in a position financially as if the problems you have encountered had never occurred. This would include any loss of earnings caused by the injury, past, future and any reduction in pension entitlement caused by the undiagnosed fracture.

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Our Personal Injury Lawyers

The Legal Line lawyers are experts in all areas of personal injury, with extensive experience in recovering compensation for the victims of clinical negligence, including missed fractures. They can provide specialist claim advice, assistance and guidance in helping you to pursue your claim to the best possible outcome.

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Successful Claims for Undiagnosed Fractures

Our lawyers have handled many clinical negligence claims on behalf of people affected by the failure of a medical establishment to diagnose a fracture.  Examples of such cases can be found below, and in our news and success stories sections:

• Following a fall, our client was suffering pain in his thumb and wrist, so visited the accident and emergency department at hospital. An x-ray was taken and he was told that there was a ‘mild fracture’ so he should keep his thumb mobile and rest for one week. No treatment was given and our client’s wrist was not strapped or put into a plaster cast.

  Almost a month later he was still experiencing a lot of pain and was still unable to attend work. He received a letter from the hospital asking him to return and another x-ray was taken. Our client was told that there was in fact an obvious ‘Bennett’s’ fracture at the base of his thumb, near to the wrist. He had to undergo surgery to repair the damage and it was a number of months before he could return to work.

  The delay in making a correct diagnosis meant that the fracture had begun to heal incorrectly, so more complicated treatment was necessary and the recovery time was longer. Ongoing problems are possible and our client may even require further surgery in the future, which is a particular problem as he has a heavy physical job. Our specialist clinical negligence lawyers got the hospital to admit fault and recovered £17,500.00 compensation in respect of this medical misdiagnosis, for the pain, inconvenience and financial losses suffered by the claimant.

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