Brain & Spinal Surgery Negligence claims.

Neurosurgical and spinal negligence claims concern some of the most serious injuries in medicine: damage to the brain and spinal cord that timely diagnosis and surgery would have prevented.

A subdural haematoma is a bleed between the brain and the skull, classically after a head injury — and particularly dangerous in older patients and anyone on blood-thinning medication. The symptoms can be subtle at first: headache, confusion, drowsiness, a fluctuating level of consciousness. NICE head-injury guidance sets out clearly who needs a CT scan and when. Claims arise when patients are sent home without scanning, or deteriorating patients on wards are not re-scanned, and the bleed expands to cause permanent brain damage that earlier surgery would have avoided.

A spinal haematoma — a bleed compressing the spinal cord — is rarer but equally devastating, and is often linked to the incorrect use of anticoagulant medication: blood thinners given when they should have been withheld around spinal procedures such as epidurals and lumbar punctures, or not reversed when bleeding was suspected. Untreated, cord compression progresses to paralysis within hours; the treatment is emergency decompression surgery.

Because the outcomes are typically permanent neurological injury — paralysis, cognitive impairment, loss of independence — awards are substantial: commonly several hundred thousand pounds and £1 million–£5 million or more where lifelong care is needed. Fatal cases fall under the Fatal Accidents Act 1976. The limitation period is generally 3 years from the harm or date of knowledge, with no time limit running while a person has lacked mental capacity since the injury.