Gardener To Sue After NHS Knee Surgery At Barlborough Independent Treatment Centre

“Gardener to sue after NHS knee surgery at Derby’s Barlborough independent treatment centre
In: NHS issues / OutsourcingOn: 06/08/2008
A gardener is set to take legal action because he says an operation at a Derbyshire treatment centre has left him in agony.

Keith Wardman, 63, was told the operation would cure his nagging knee problems, but now he is in constant pain. He is on the waiting list for a knee replacement at Derbyshire Royal Infirmary and says he wishes he had never gone to the Barlborough clinic. Barlborough is an independent sector treatment centre (ISTC), contracted to perform orthopaedic operations on NHS patients, and was already being sued over two problem operations. It was after reading the news that Mr Wardman began to question his own treatment at the centre.

Mr Wardman’s GP referred him to a surgeon at Ilkeston community hospital and he was told he would need an operation to replace his knee joint, but in the meantime he takes up to 16 tablets a day to control the pain.  Surgeons in Derby hospitals have had to correct a number of operations performed at the Barlborough. Last year, a surgeon working for the Derby Hospitals NHS Trust wrote to Barlborough’s medical director saying he had personally performed revision surgery on three knee replacements originally performed at Barlborough, at a cost of £15,000 each to the NHS.

Laurence Vick is head of clinical negligence at Michelmores and has dealt with more than a dozen such cases, mostly from ISTCs in the south west, in which orthopaedic surgery has been bungled. ‘The original contracts allowed private healthcare companies to set up clinics in a hurry and bring in what were often unqualified doctors,’ he claims. ‘This has been a major problem in health policy over the past several years. It’s wasted perhaps billions of pounds and, more important, it has often cost NHS patients dear in terms of their health. ‘They have been recommended by the NHS to these clinics and often found that the clinical standards were far below those they have a right to expect.’”

Reported on Michelmores Website 6 August 2008. Michelmores are Clinical Negligence Solicitors.