A man who developed mesothelioma years after he was exposed to asbestos while working for a...
Those who think that it takes too long to win compensation for clinical negligence to make it worthwhile taking legal action were proved wrong by a High Court ruling. A cancer survivor who blamed a doctor for years of unnecessary suffering won a £100,000 interim payment to tide her over until her full award could be assessed.
The former solicitor and mother of four had undergone extensive, distressing and debilitating treatment since being diagnosed with liver cancer. Lawyers on her behalf claimed that all that would have been avoided had she not been let down by a Harley Street-based consultant radiologist.
The doctor had performed a CT scan four years before her diagnosis but had failed to report a mass on her liver. In pursuing her claim for more than £630,000 in damages, the woman’s lawyers claimed that the tumour was not at that stage malignant and that prompt surgery would probably have provided a complete cure.
The doctor’s legal team had indicated that breach of duty was admitted but argued that the woman already had malignant cancer at the time of the CT scan and that earlier surgery would have made little or no difference to the outcome. There was, however, expert evidence on the woman’s side that it was close to inconceivable that, had that been the case, she would have still been alive when diagnosed.