Delayed Scan Review Leaves Patient With Septic Shock
Delays in responding to signs of sepsis and failing to act in a timely manner on the results of a scan have left our client struggling with both physical and emotional difficulties.
When Laura attended her GP with severe abdominal pain, her symptoms were such that the GP referred her to Accident and Emergency immediately. Laura arrived at hospital at around one o'clock in the afternoon.
She was given pain relief and monitored through the course of the afternoon, with a plan for an abdominal ultrasound. Laura continued to experience extreme pain and was feeling sick and light-headed, The ultrasound did not provide an explanation for her symptoms and later that evening Laura underwent a CT scan.
This suggested that Laura was suffering from Pelvic Inflammatory Disease, an infection of the reproductive system, and that an urgent referral to the gynaecology team was needed. However, the results were not reviewed until around nine o'clock the following morning and Laura was not seen by an Obstetrics and Gynaecology consultant until the following afternoon.
Unfortunately, during the intervening period, Laura was showing increasing signs of developing sepsis, a life-threatening response to infection. Overnight, her early warning score had increased dramatically and continued to do so during the following day. She was not commenced on intravenous antibiotics until the morning but by the time of undergoing surgery for a pelvic abscess late in the afternoon of the second day, she was in septic shock.
It was admitted by the hospital that not to have acted sooner to review Laura's CT scan was a breach of duty.
In the opinion of our experts, a review of the CT scan should have taken place by midnight of the day on which Laura arrived at hospital and that such a review would have led to earlier surgery at which time Laura's sepsis condition would have been less severe.
Had this been the case, it is regarded as likely that the problems, both physical and psychological, which Laura suffered as a result of sepsis, would have been less severe.
It was also felt that there was sufficient evidence of Laura developing sepsis by the evening of the first day to justify earlier assessment and antibiotic intervention rather than the delay to the morning of the second day.
The entire experience was extremely distressing for Laura. Untreated sepsis, developing to septic shock, is a life-threatening condition. Even when the patient survives, as has fortunately been the case for Laura, post-sepsis syndrome can severely undermine an individual's long-term health.
In view of the admission of breach of duty and taking into account the difficulties with pain, anxiety, fatigue and a range of other distressing and debilitating symptoms which Laura continued to experience as a result of her delayed treatment, she was awarded in excess of £75,000 in compensation.
(Details which might identify our client have been changed.)
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