MEDICAL NEGLIGENCE.

The King’s Bench Division dismissed the claimant’s claim for damages following a trial of the issues of liability and causation where the claimant asserted that the defendant NHS Trust had breached its duty of care to her by failing to identify Cauda Equina Syndrome (CES) during the radiological review of an MRI scan the day after an alleged fall at work.

The claimant argued that her General Practitioner (GP) had failed to identify compression which required urgent surgery and that her report was reassuring when it should have been to the opposite effect. The claimant had had a history of back pain, surgical interventions and longstanding urological problems. She argued that had the MRI been interpreted correctly she would have received decompression surgery the next day, leading to a better outcome.

The court found that the claimant’s GP was confident in her evidence that she had accurately assessed the MRI scan and had not overlooked any significant pathology indicative of cauda equina compression, which was the purpose of the MRI imaging. Further, the onset of the claimant’s symptoms could not be relied on as supporting the presence of compression since the medical notes reflected an untruthful history and her urological and pain symptoms had never been shown to be definitively attributable to CES.

The court held that it could not be said that the scan was not reasonably reported on the basis that there was no fixed standard so that, inevitably, there was a degree of subjectivity in reporting scans. The information showed no radiological evidence of cauda equina compression. Since it was not there to be found, the fact that it was not identified represented an accurate assessment of the scan and not a breach of duty.

Summary – Spellman v Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust

Full Judgment – Spellman v Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust [2024] EWHC 2011 (KB)_Attachment1