Nursing and Care Home Claims
Nurses play a very important part in the care of patients in hospitals. We have been able to successfully pursue many claims over the years where we have been able to establish that the care they provided to patients was negligent and that this caused injury or, in extreme cases, death. Examples of some of the cases we have been able to pursue successfully are as follows:-
(a) Where elderly patients have been admitted to hospital but there has been no proper assessment in respect of the risk of damage to their skin, for instance from lying in one position for too long, and as a result they have sustained pressure sores. In some cases the awards we have achieved for this sort of injury have been very large as such injuries can significantly affect the lives of those injured in this way.
(b) Elderly patients falling and injuring themselves in hospital because they have not been properly supervised by the nurses and not accompanied when there has been a risk of them falling.
(c) Nurses giving the wrong medication to patients. In some cases this has led to the death of the patients concerned.
(d) Nurses failing to note, after an operation, that all the swabs have been removed from the patient concerned with the result that a swab has been left in the patient causing significant injury to them and, in some cases, the need for a further operation.
(e) Where failures to carry out proper observations, including blood pressure, temperature and pulse, have led to there being a delay in such patients receiving prompt medical attention resulting, tragically, in them suffering serious injury or death.
(f) Failure to properly observe psychiatric patients who tragically took their own lives in circumstances where, if they had been properly observed, this would probably not have occurred.
The above are just a few examples of cases where negligent nursing care has been established and compensation awarded to patients concerned or, where they have tragically died, to their families.
Nursing homes depend, to a large extent, on nurses and nursing assistants to provide the care needed by the residents who are normally elderly. Such residents are very vulnerable and need very careful and close care, and, as with elderly hospital patients, they require very careful assessment as regards the risk of pressure sores, their medication, and the staff should always be very willing to seek medical attention for them if their condition deteriorates. We have successfully pursued a number of claims against care homes where we have been able to establish that the care received was negligent, resulting in injury to the client. Such claims have included giving inappropriate medication and where pressure sores have been sustained by the client. It is well established that with proper care pressure sores should not be sustained by patients or residents in a nursing home.
We feel that by continuing to pursue claims in respect of negligent nursing care or care in nursing homes, not only are we achieving justice for our clients but we hope that standards of care have improved and will continue to improve.
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