Orthopaedic Claims

You may have grounds to believe that you or a loved one has not received the appropriate standard of care expected from your doctor or hospital if there was:

• A failure to identify a condition
• A misdiagnosis
• Delayed diagnosis
• Surgical injury

Your Legal Friend has many years of experience in successfully resolving different types of clinical negligence cases. We offer specialist knowledge of both legal and medical issues, together with a sensitive understanding of how everyone involved is affected. We can help you:

• Find out the reason why something went wrong with a diagnosis, treatment or procedure.
• Obtain financial compensation for the injury or harm caused, which may need long-term treatment, care and support.

• 144,047 orthopaedic procedures completed by the NHS in 2014    
• Knee procedures - 69,662 (48.3%)
• Hip procedures - 68,529 (47.5%)
• Shoulder procedures - 4,781 (0.3%)
• Elbow procedures - 567
• Ankle procedures - 508          
• 15% of all negligence claims received by the NHS, 2013-14
• 9,865 orthopaedic litigation claims between 1995 and 2010

The most common procedures are:

• Repairing fractured bones
• Hip replacement
• Knee replacement
• Soft tissue repair -  damaged muscles, torn tendons or ligaments

Other types of surgery include:

• ACL Reconstruction – repair of the Anterior Cruciate Ligament - the major stabilising ligament at the front of the knee, which can rupture if the knee is twisted or injured.
• Arthroscopy - ‘keyhole’ surgery where tiny cameras and medical instruments are inserted into a joint to diagnose and repair damaged joint tissue, such as cartilage damage.
• Arthroplasty – surgery used to replace or resurface joints affected by arthritis.

A patient may be caused preventable harm, suffering or loss as a result of:

• A misdiagnosis or delayed diagnosis, sometimes caused by misreading X-rays
• Failure to recognise or treat fractures, particularly in A&E
• A delay in diagnosis of a fracture
• Problems appearing during a  hip, knee or elbow replacement
• Poor surgical technique
• Wrong site surgery
• Incorrect repair of a fracture, requiring further surgery
• Damage to blood circulation
• Nerve damage
• Infection following an operation
• Equipment malfunction
• Incorrect size of prosthesis

You may have grounds to make a claim for an orthopaedic injury if you are able to show:

• A missed or negligent diagnosis - below a standard of appropriate care that would be provided by another doctor in the same field with the same qualified training and experience.
• Incorrect surgery or treatment – where a repair or replacement is not performed correctly.
• Errors in joint reconstruction – you may not have had the appropriate type of treatment. Severity and location can also affect the way treatment is applied.

With some types of spinal injuries and the use of advanced treatment technologies, it may sometimes be possible for the damage caused to the spine to be of short duration and a full recovery can be made by the patient.

An injury caused to the bones of the spine may well be able to heal, however, any damage to the spinal cord itself is still considered almost always irreversible. When the spine has been seriously damaged or the spinal cord is severed, there are major implications for a patient’s future with immobility or severe movement impairment.

• Around 500–600 people suffer from acute traumatic injuries to the spinal cord each year in the UK.
• Five times as many people - around 2, 750 - are estimated will suffer a spinal fracture or dislocation alone.
• Just 7 per cent of spinal injury cases are referred within 24 hours.
• 59 per cent of spinal injury cases are admitted to hospital within 30 days. 

• 40,000 people in the UK are estimated living with a spinal cord injury.
• Every eight hours, an injury to the spinal cord occurs in the UK.

When the structure of the spine, the bones, spinal discs, nerves and/or cord have been damaged a full or partial recovery may be possible. However, an injury to the spinal cord is usually very serious with paralysis and severe immobility as a lifelong outcome. 

Spinal injuries can cause:

• Restricted mobility.
• Constant pain.
• Weakness in the limbs.
• Altered or loss of sensation.
• Involuntary muscle spasms.

Missed or delayed diagnosis

The duty of care you are owed as a patient means that every doctor, specialist or  nurse  must “exercise the skill appropriate to their experience and training and perform their clinical responsibilities in line with their peers.” To prove a clinical negligence claim we then have to go on to show that you are worse now as a result of the doctor, specialist or nurses’ failing.

When care in the diagnosis and treatment of a spinal injury falls below an acceptable standard, the injuries can affect motor, brain and nerve function. A spinal injury could still be ‘unstable’ with the possibility of further complications developing but a doctor may have mistakenly diagnosed the injury as already having “stabilised.”

• Herniated Disc ( known as a “slipped disc”)
• Lumbar Disc Disease
• Degenerative Disc Disease
• Spinal Fusion
• Spinal Stenosis (restriction or narrowing of the spinal canal)
• Spinal Abscess
• Spinal Cyst
• Spinal Haemorrhage
• Spinal Decompression
• Spinal Tumour