An attempt to claim damages for brain injury over wrong information on waiting times given by a receptionist to a patient with a head injury has succeeded at the Supreme Court.
It was reasonably foreseeable that the patient, Mr Darnley, who was incorrectly told the wait would be four or five hours, would leave and his unannounced departure from the A&E department did not break the chain of causation, five justices unanimously agreed, in Darnley v Croydon Health Services NHS Trust [2018] UKSC 50.
Mr Darnley's lawyer, Deborah Blythe, partner and head of the Clinical Negligence team at Russell-Cooke said: 'This is the first litigated case in which compensation has been sought for injury caused by receptionists giving misleading information in an A&E department. The Supreme Court made it clear that this case should not be seen as an extension of the law of negligence but rather as requiring definition because of the novel facts.'
Tom Lax, senior solicitor, Bolt Burdon Kemp, said NHS trusts should have a policy of giving patients correct information on waiting times on arrival: 'The circumstance in this case will not make receptionists into victims of spurious “he said/she said” claims, but instead ensure that procedures are put in place, by responsible NHS Trusts around the country, to make sure that any person attending A&E will be given accurate information about waiting times when arriving at hospital (something that is very likely on the statistics to lead to people avoiding significant injury in the future).'
