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<p><a href="https://www.parklaneplowden.co.uk/our-barristers/howard-elgot/">Howard Elgot</a> and <a href="https://www.parklaneplowden.co.uk/our-barristers/megan-crowther/">Megan Crowther</a> of Parklane Plowden Chambers, instructed by David Bradshaw of <a href="https://www.hay-kilner.co.uk/">Hay & Kilner LLP</a>, acted for the Claimant in her claim against the Newcastle-upon-Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in a 5-day High Court trial at the Royal Courts of Justice last week. Judgment has been reserved. The trial is to determine breach of duty and causation, and liability has been strongly contested by the Trust.<br><br>The claim was brought after the Claimant, who can be referred to only as HQA because of an anonymity order made by the High Court, suffered severe brain damage after undergoing open heart surgery at the Freeman Hospital, Newcastle. The Claimant had suffered congenital heart problems from birth and had undergone many operations and other procedures over her lifetime.<br><br>In order to gain access to her heart, the surgeon used an oscillating saw. The saw slipped, and instead of the saw cutting through only the anterior section of the Claimant’s sternum, the saw went fully through the sternum and into her aorta, cutting off the blood supply to her brain.<br><br>It then took so long for the surgeons to put the Claimant on cardio-pulmonary bypass that she suffered very severe hypoxic brain damage. The time was prolonged in part because another surgeon, who had been called in because of the emergency, attempted to cannulate one femoral artery, the artery dissected, and another femoral artery had to be prepared and cannulated.<br><br>Following the operation, HQA’s family were told to expect the worst, but the Claimant has at least made a partial recovery.<br><br>The allegations against the hospital are that the surgeons did not obtain HQA’s informed consent to the operation, that the surgeons failed to plan adequately for the possibility of the catastrophic event that occurred, and that the operating surgeon ought to have been able to keep control of his saw. The Claimant’s expert cardiac surgeon advised that the dissection of the artery in the panic of the emergency was an inherent risk and therefore a free-standing claim relating to the arterial dissection could not be pursued.<br><br>The allegations that the surgeons failed to prepare for the possibility of the aorta being pierced during the surgery were focused upon the CT Angiogram that HQA had undergone before surgery, and another CT Angiogram that she had undergone in 2016. A central issue was whether HQA’s aorta was so closely applied to the back of her sternum that any slip of the saw or use of any dissecting instrument would inevitably pierce the aorta.<br><br>The claim is estimated to have a value of over £5,000,000.<br></p>
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