Issue 12
September 2003

S.J. Edney solicitors were established in 1996 and are a niche Clinical Negligence and Personal Injury Practice. Seamus Edney and Denise Broomfield are both members of the Association for Victims of Medical Accidents Referral Panel and the Law Society's Clinical Negligence Panel. The firm holds a Legal Aid Franchise in Clinical Negligence

As a firm we are committed to acting for victims of accidents and between us we have twenty five years experience of Clinical Negligence work.

 

CONGRATULATIONS …

Forgive us for patting ourselves on the back but we have just been awarded a Category 1 audit by the Legal Services Commission. This means that we are one of the top performing firms for Legal Help Clinical Negligence work. One doesn't like to brag but … !

and … Denise Broomfield has had a new baby …. not one of the pink squealing kind but a new department handling claims resulting from negligently performed cosmetic surgery.

Denise, who has specialised in clinical negligence work since qualifying in 1990, has established this department to deal with the increasing wave of claims resulting from plastic or cosmetic surgery. Denise says:

"I have noticed over the past couple of years that the number of people undergoing cosmetic surgery and developing problems as a result has increased. The media publicise celebrities with the "perfect body" to such an extent that the man or woman on the street is not happy with what nature gives them. The problems seem to stem from clients being promised results which were never achievable, surgery being undertaken by surgeons who are practising outside of their area of expertise and people not being given the aftercare.
It is not widely known that there is no specialist training for cosmetic surgery. Any doctor can undertake cosmetic surgery and many do. It is a good source of private income for doctors. Plastic Surgeons who work in the NHS are the best placed to undertake this surgery and many are excellent but here are those who are not.

Another worrying trend is the increase in the number of "fixed price" operations offered. The pricing is based on a two or three day in hospital (on average) and people are then discharged regardless of whether or not they are well enough to go. This means that serious infections and other post operative complications are not picked up. Patients who do develop complications once they get home are then asked to travel long distances to get to clinics, they often do not see the operating surgeon again and they still have to pay for the privilege. The situation is a nightmare and is very under publicised".

WARNING TO DOCTORS

DOCTORS have been told off for using offensive slang, particularly acronyms, to describe patients in their medical notes.

The group of doctors based at hospitals in London and Cambridge who issued the advice to their colleagues have also compiled a handy dictionary of banned terms in Ethics & Behaviour 2003; 13: 173-90). Never use any of these:

Cheerioma	Patient with a highly aggressive, malignant tumour
CLL	Chronic low life
Departure lounge	Geriatric Ward
Freud squad	Psychiatrists
Gassers	Anaesthetists
GPO	Good for parts only
Guessing tube	Stethoscope
House red	Blood
LOBNH	Lights on but nobody home
Oligoneuronal	Person of low intellect
Pest control	Term applied to psychiatrists by casualty department officers
PFO	Pissed, fell over
PRATFO	Patient reassured and told to "go away"
Removal men	Department for care of elderly people
Rose Cottage	Mortuary
Rule of five	If more than five orifices are obscured by plastic tubing, the patient's condition is deemed critical
Slashers	General Surgeons
Treat'n'street	Accident and emergency department's term for quick patient turnaround

SEPTEMBER NEWSBRIEFS
Embryo Ruling Two women lost their legal battle to have babies through IVF after a Judge in the High Court ruled that their frozen embryos must be destroyed. The women's former partners had refused to consent to the treatment and the law requires that both parties must agree to the embryos being used. The women claimed that the "male veto" infringed their human rights, but the Judge said that the would-be fathers had rights too.	NHS Reform A report by the National audit Office stated that patients in over a third of NHS Trusts are failing to benefit from the system of clinical governance introduced give years ago to improve patient care. Managers blamed the mass of government targets and introduction of organisational changes.
Public Funding blow to families in MMR battle Families trying to prove that the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine causes autism were told on the 1 October 2003 that they did not have the medical evidence to fight their claims in Court. The cases of more than 1,000 children who developed medical problems after receiving the combined MMR jab were due to be heard at the High Court next April. But lawyers acting for the families lost an appeal against the decision by the Legal Services Commission to withdraw public funding, meaning that the cases are now unlikely to go forward. Funding has been provided to some of the children involved in the action for nearly ten years in their battle for compensation. But the Commission said that medical research had not provided a conclusive link between the MMR vaccine and autism and that there was no acceptance among the worldwide medical authorities that the jab caused the symptoms experienced by the children.	NHS to pay for surgery abroad Thousands of patients waiting for surgery will be able to go abroad for their operations and have them paid for by the NHS, after a High Court judgment on 1 October 2003. Mr Justice Munby ruled that a patient waiting "significantly" longer than three months for a hip operation had a legal right to have it free elsewhere in Europe. He admitted his decision would have a profound impact on the health service, but said EU law was clear that member states could not refuse to pay for foreign treatment unless they could offer the same treatment without undue delay.

 

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This newsletter was produced by S J Edney, solicitors at Alexander House, 19 Fleming Way, Swindon, Wiltshire. SN1 2NG - e-mail sjedney@supanet.com
Telephone 01793 600721