Family awarded 5-figure sum after lawsuit

The family of an 86-year-old great-grandmother who fell when a student nurse was trying to help her to the toilet have been awarded compensation for the hospital’s failure to exhibit due care. The family was awarded a five-figure sum by the NHS Trust to compensate for their loss.

While in the care of the hospital, a student nurse was helping the woman to a commode when she fell and hit her head on a wall, dying 48 hours later due to bleeding on the brain. The court was told that there had been no risk assessment before staff attempted to move the woman and that the trainee health worker was unsupervised. The nurse had tried to keep the patient steady by holding her hands.

The woman’s family said that they believed that “poor training and inadequate procedures” caused her death. According to reports, they had been sent a letter of apology from the hospital, but the family suggested that the letter had provided little consolation. They also said that the hospital had promised to implement procedures that would help avoid the same type of accident from happening again but that they did not believe that the necessary improvements would be made.

Anyone who suffers a nursing home injury or a worsened medical condition due to misdiagnosis, a failure to diagnose, doctor error, surgical error or hospital negligence may be able to seek compensation through a similar court action. Any award for the victim or, in the case of a fatal medical error, surviving family, might take the costs incurred due to the accident, such as the cost of emergency medical care, into account.

Source: Mail Online, “Great grandmother, 86, died after she fell as unsupervised student nurse tried to help her out of hospital bed,” Martin Robinson, Oct. 6, 2014