Boyes Turner’s medical negligence team secured a six figure settlement for a client who suffered severe, permanent loss of peripheral vision in both eyes after hospital eye clinic doctors and her GP repeatedly failed to refer her for specialist medical retina clinic review. Failure to refer for specialist medical retina clinic review Our client contacted her GP after noticing that she was having issues with her peripheral vision, causing her to miss steps and trip over items in her home. She attended a telephone consultation with her GP who advised her to attend A&E for further assessment as retinal detachment could not be excluded and an urgent ophthalmology review was needed, given the risk of loss of vision. She attended the hospital’s eye casualty unit the same day and was reviewed by an ophthalmologist who gave her an eye lubricant and recommended review in the medical retina clinic in two months’ time. A letter was sent to her GP advising that an appointment would be arranged for her to be reviewed in the medical retina clinic, but no appointment was made. She returned to the hospital eye casualty with ongoing peripheral vision symptoms a month later and saw the same ophthalmologist who diagnosed a posterior vitreous detachment, but this time merely planned a routine referral to the medical retina clinic. A letter was sent to the GP saying that a follow-up eye clinic appointment would be arranged for 6 months’ time. Later records showed that, due to the covid pandemic, only urgent referrals for the eye clinic would be booked from the eye casualty, and she was discharged from the eye casualty as no acute intervention was needed. A further letter was sent to her GP requesting a routine referral to the medical retina clinic, but the GP did not make the referral. Private referral leads to MRI and diagnosis of autoimmune retinopathy Over the next few months our client’s vision deteriorated and she was advised by an optometrist to show the findings of her recent visual field test to her GP. Over the next month she had two telephone consultations with her GP. At both consultations it was assumed that she would be followed up within six months of her last hospital appointment. Eventually, at her request, she was referred privately to a consultant ophthalmic surgeon at another hospital, who then requested a further GP private referral to a consultant ophthalmologist with medical retina expertise. The recommended specialist ophthalmologist carried out visual field tests, advised that she needed urgent treatment, and referred her to a consultant at a more specialist hospital for further investigations including an urgent MRI scan of her head. After further tests, she was referred to the uveitis service at Moorfields Hospital, leading to a diagnosis of autoimmune retinopathy. Disability from severe loss of peripheral vision Our client suffered the loss of 90% of her visual field. She needed treatment with high dose oral steroids, chemotherapy, Rituximab and steroid eye injections, and must take lifelong immunosuppressant medication. The injury reduced her independence and ability to manage everyday tasks. It impaired her ability to drive, care for her children, or return to work as a teaching assistant or pursue her planned new business as a photographer. She suffered a psychological injury. Claim results in six-figure compensation settlement We helped our client pursue her claim against the NHS trust and her GP on the basis that their delays in referring our client for medical retina clinic specialist review caused an indivisible material contribution to our client’s permanent sight-loss injury. When neither defendant responded to the claim, we issued court proceedings. NHS Resolution responded, admitting that aspects of our client’s treatment had been negligent, but denied that correct, timely diagnosis and treatment would have avoided our client’s sight-loss injury. We invited NHS Resolution to consider mediation of the claim. They agreed to the mediation but their settlement proposals significantly undervalued the claim. Following the mediation, and disclosure of additional expert evidence, further negotiations resulted in a six-figure settlement for our client. If you or a family member have suffered severe injury as a result of medical negligence or have been contacted by HSSIB/MNSI or NHS Resolution you can talk to a solicitor, free and confidentially, for advice about how to respond or make a claim by contacting us.
