Delayed Diagnosis and Treatment of Stroke

The case involved a 50 year old man who had a blood clot in one of the major arteries in his brain, but which was missed by the radiologist who looked at his CT scan when he went to A&E.

He went on to suffer a brain injury that left him wheelchair-bound and entirely dependent upon others for all aspects of day to day life, but with full mental capacity.

The events took place in 2016 when a relatively new treatment called thrombectomy (removal of the clot using a catheter) was being introduced.

Through various Freedom of Information Act requests we could establish that he would have been able to receive a thrombectomy at a specialist hospital approximately 45 minutes away, within the time window for successful treatment, and our stroke expert evidence opined that it would have left him with very minimal, if any disability if it had been done.

Breach of duty was admitted in respect of the reporting of the CT scan, but causation was denied. The Defendant disclosed both witness and expert evidence that argued that timely diagnosis would have made no difference to our client’s outcome. The matter was pursued, expert evidence was exchanged, and the case was settled for 95% liability approximately three weeks before the liability trial.

We obtained over £600,000 of interim payments of damages whilst the case was still being resolved, so that spending on therapies, equipment, wheelchair-accessible vehicles and disability-friendly holidays could all be commenced without waiting for the case to conclude.

To quantify the case we had 10 different experts. The Claimant’s income was from financial markets and shares, so we worked with a forensic accountant to predict performance over future years to quantify that loss.

The case was also unusual because we made a claim for a hydrotherapy pool to be built at a future home for the Claimant. Hydrotherapy at home is often hotly-contested because of the installation and maintenance costs of a pool, which amount to hundreds of thousands of pounds. It is much cheaper to hire a local pool for an hour or two, and we built a body of evidence to explain why this unsuitable for the Claimant in this case.

We settled, again shortly before trial, on the basis that the Claimant would require 2:1 care, 24 hours per day, for the rest of his life. The case settled for a lump sum of around £4.4m and periodical payments of £500,000 per year (index-linked) for the rest of his life. The total value if that were all capitalised into a lump sum would be approximately £10.2m.

Conclusion

Martin was delighted to have been recommended to the case by the then Head of Exchange Chambers, Bill Braithwaite KC, one of the best brain injury barristers in the country. I consider it a career highlight to have worked on the case, achieving the outcome we have in such complex circumstances.