Delayed Treatment - ENT Negligence

Claim For Delayed ENT Department Treatment

With any kind of surgery there can sometimes be valid reasons for delaying a treatment. Perhaps the patient is not deemed to be strong enough to survive the procedure, or in some cases other treatments might need to be tried before surgery is necessary. If it is in the best interest of the patient to delay surgery for a good reason, then a delay in treatment could be seen as appropriate.

However there are too many cases where treatment is delayed for reasons that are not in the best interest of the patient. When ENT treatment is delayed it can have a variety of potentially dangerous knock-on effects, such as the condition becoming worse or more complicated, and in many cases more difficult to treat. With certain conditions and situations there may be a specific time-frame during which certain elements of treatment must take place in order to achieve the best result for the patient.

There can be different reasons as to why treatment can be delayed – some perfectly acceptable, but others not so. Take for example the Welsh woman who was not treated for throat cancer due to doctors thinking her swallowing problems were a result of an eating disorder. She had been due to see a specialist in the ENT department but had missed her appointment due to her depression. When she was subsequently admitted to the local mental health unit where staff repeatedly tried to force her to eat, her family became increasingly concerned and pleased with doctors to examine her throat. After many attempts she was moved to the ENT department at the Royal Gwent Hospital where she was swiftly diagnosed with throat cancer from which she died three weeks later.

As this case highlights, different issues within different departments can lead to delays or missed diagnoses that ultimately can lead to additional suffering or even death. When you contact us to discuss your claim, we will ask you a series of questions about your experience, and if needs be we will employ medical specialists to get to the bottom of where things went wrong, and to find who is ultimately responsible.
Claims of this nature must be commenced within three years of the problem occurring, so don’t put off calling us until it is too late.