Breach was found or admitted in seven of the eight. The money followed only where the delay was shown to have changed the outcome.
Claimant succeeded
[2025] EWHC 3056 (KB)·2025·Liability decided at trial
A 49-year-old man saw his GP with breathlessness and a persistent cough; the GP ordered a chest X-ray on the computer system but the judge found she never told him to go to the walk-in radiology department. The court held he would have attended if told and was not himself at fault.
Ordering a test is not enough; the patient must be told clearly what to do. Courts are slow to blame patients for not chasing a test they did not know had been requested.
Claimant succeeded£7,500
[2013] EWHC 600 (QB)·2013·Liability and damages decided at trial
A woman with months of bloating and bowel symptoms was urgently referred by her GP, but the judge found he never told her and the hospital lost the letter, so nothing happened until she was diagnosed with advanced ovarian cancer seven months later. The GP was liable for the delay but only £7,500 was awarded because the delay was not shown to have shortened her life.
A GP must tell the patient an urgent referral has been made so it can be chased. Damages for delayed cancer diagnosis are limited to what the delay actually caused, which may be modest.
Claimant succeeded
[2017] EWHC 3147 (QB)·2017·Liability and damages decided at trial
After surgery at Charing Cross Hospital in 2001 the patient was never told his tumour was malignant or that he needed regular CT surveillance, and the cancer recurred undetected until 2010. The court found a continuing duty to inform him of his diagnosis and follow-up needs which the Trust failed to discharge.
Hospitals must tell patients the result of their treatment and the follow-up they need; failing to communicate a cancer diagnosis and the need for monitoring is negligent.
Claimant succeeded£68,742
[2017] EWHC 863 (QB)·2017·Damages assessed at trial
Swabs taken after childbirth showed chlamydia but neither the patient nor her GP was told, and it went untreated for about a year; she suffered repeated pain and an ectopic pregnancy requiring removal of a fallopian tube. The trust admitted breach; the court accepted the ectopic pregnancy and a period of pain disorder were caused by the negligence but rejected the claim that her later chronic widespread pain was.
Failing to pass on an abnormal test result is a clear breach, but the claimant still has to prove which later problems flowed from it. Long-term pain conditions are hard to attribute to a delayed diagnosis.
Claimant succeeded£1.84M
[2019] EWHC 1508 (QB)·2019·Appeal decision
A premature baby was sent home although a blood culture taken in hospital grew Group B strep; staff did not recall her and she developed meningitis with severe brain injury. The claim settled for a lump sum and annual payments; this reported judgment concerns a costs dispute, which the claimant lost.
Failing to act on a positive blood culture after discharge can lead to a multi-million-pound settlement. Note the published judgment is about costs, not the merits.
Claim failed
[2016] EWHC 251 (QB)·2016·Liability decided at trial
After surgery for a broken femur at St Richard's Hospital, Chichester, the patient was discharged in April 2008 without arrangements to repeat his inflammatory-marker blood tests, and a deep infection was diagnosed later. The court found this discharge and a four-day debridement delay were breaches of duty, but there was no evidence they made his condition materially worse, so the claim was dismissed.
Discharging a patient without arranging follow-up blood tests can be a breach of duty, but compensation depends on showing the delay actually worsened the outcome.
Mixed outcome
[2020] EWHC 1504 (QB)·2020·Liability decided at trial
A baby born breech by caesarean should have had a hip ultrasound within six weeks, but the appointment was not arranged until nine weeks and, after rescheduling, the scan at 17 weeks showed hip dysplasia in both hips, needing surgery. The Trust admitted breach but, shortly before trial, sought to blame the mother's missed appointment; the judge refused the late amendment.
Babies born breech need a timely hip scan, and a trust's failure to arrange one within its own protocol was admitted as negligent. Defendants cannot raise new causation arguments on the eve of trial without good reason.
Claim failed
[2017] EWCA Civ 1711·2017·Appeal decision
A man treated in the early 1980s sued in 2014, saying no one followed up his hormone condition until a new doctor restarted treatment in 2011. The Court of Appeal found he had known enough back in 1983 and that a 28-year delay had destroyed the records needed to defend the case.
Where very long delay means the records that would show what actually happened no longer exist, the court will usually hold the claimant to the deadline. Realising only years later that better treatment existed does not by itself restart the clock.