§ PUBLISHED JUDGMENT · 2018

Darnley v Croydon Health Services NHS Trust

[2018] UKSC 50·Supreme Court of the United Kingdom·10 October 2018

A man with a head injury was told by an A&E receptionist he would wait four to five hours, left after 19 minutes, and collapsed at home with a brain bleed. The Supreme Court held the hospital owed him a duty not to give misleading information about waiting times and that his leaving did not break the chain of causation.

Outcome

Claimant succeeded

Sum stated in judgment

Not stated

Claim type

A&E Negligence

Decided

Appeal decision

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§ WHAT HAPPENED

The facts, in brief.

Defendant: Croydon Health Services NHS Trust · this trust’s claims data

Injury: Extradural haematoma after a head injury; delayed treatment left the claimant with a severe, permanent left hemiplegia

Specialty: Accident and Emergency · England

§ WHAT THE COURT SAID

In the judgment’s own words.

“For these reasons I would allow the appeal and remit the case to the Queen's Bench Division for the assessment of damages.”

The money

No sum stated; liability established and the case was remitted to the Queen's Bench Division for damages to be assessed.

§ WHY IT MATTERS

What this case shows.

An NHS trust's duty of care in A&E starts at the reception desk, and wrong information given by non-clinical staff can found a negligence claim.

About a&e negligence claims →

§ MORE A&E NEGLIGENCE JUDGMENTS

Claimant succeeded

JBX v Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust

[2026] EWHC 2294 (KB)·2026·Damages assessed at trial

An eight-year-old brought to Frimley Park Hospital in January 2018 with severe breathing difficulty was discharged the same afternoon instead of being admitted and given steroids; the next day he had a cardiac arrest and catastrophic brain injury. The Trust admitted negligence and causation and this judgment decides disputed heads of damages.

Sending a child home from A&E with signs of life-threatening asthma, rather than admitting and treating, was admitted to be negligent. Once liability is admitted the dispute moves to how care and lost earnings should be valued.

Mixed outcome

MAN v St George's University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

[2024] EWHC 1304 (KB)·2024·Liability decided at trial

A woman went to A&E with extreme lower-leg pain and was sent home by a nurse practitioner instead of being seen by a senior doctor or referred to surgeons; she developed a necrotising soft tissue infection and lost her leg. The Trust admitted negligence but tried to rely on the nurse's evidence disputing how much pain she reported; the Master ruled that evidence inadmissible because the defence had never properly pleaded that dispute.

An NHS trust cannot admit negligence and then quietly contest the facts at trial without pleading them. Severe, out-of-proportion pain in a limb is a recognised warning sign of necrotising infection that calls for senior review.

Claimant succeeded

Phoebe Charmaine Pickering v Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

[2022] EWHC 1171 (QB)·2022·Liability decided at trial

Ms Pickering, who had atrial fibrillation, attended A&E with a cold, white leg; doctors diagnosed a resolved ischaemic event and sent her home on aspirin without heparin or a warning about her stroke risk. She had a major stroke 67 hours later, and the court found that anticoagulation would have prevented it.

A transient blockage in a limb can signal a clot from the heart, and discharging such a patient without anticoagulation or advice was admitted to be negligent. The case turned on causation, with the court accepting expert evidence that heparin would have stopped the clot progressing.

All a&e negligence judgments →

Contains information licensed under the Open Justice - Licence v2.0. Judgments from Find Case Law, The National Archives. Summaries are ours; amounts only where printed in the judgment.

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