From an article in today's Mail On Sunday by Laura Collins...

Nush is considering making a medical negligence claim against the NHS surgeon who operated on her.

Apparently the screws placed in her thigh are just too long. As a result Nush is experiencing a great deal of discomfort as the screws are cutting into the leg's hamstring muscle. In addition the wire holding her knee together is unwinding and, if not corrected, is likely to cut through her skin.

Nush .... 'I know that the NHS surgeons are pushed for time. My Mother's a former nurse so I'm not unaware of the situation they're working in.'

(Sorry, no link to this.)

Nush, love - no need to sue; if you turn up at the hospital and join the queue, they'll fix it for free!

I think it's quite common for screws to need to be tightened, loosened or even removed altogether around 6 months after the initial injury - presumably because initially the priority is to minimise movement (so the bone knits back effectively), whereas later it switches to maximising mobility.

I hate this attitude of "sue first, ask questions later". Nush is already entitled to compensation from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board, and having enjoyed her fair share of the NHS resources, wants to grab another handful for herself of the money which is there to pay for the rest of us.

I'd like to see her a little more grateful to all those people who have worked hard to help her recover. Selfish little mare!

That's gratitude for you.

Nice to see Nush is still as big a whinger outside of the house

i doubt they'd deliberately put in the wrong kind of screws

i reckon it must be like Pushka says

has she got her facts right before she sues?
coz if not she'll look pretty stupid
as well as damn ungrateful

I read this long article and my heart went out to Nush.

I'm not angry if she wants compensation because the losses she has suffered are enormous and to my mind it's not one of those cases where someone is simply out for all they can get.

What I'm angry about is that you can't walk down the street without fear of being mugged or worse.

I'm angry that you can get an operation that is so botched that it all has to be undone and repeated.....a scandelous waste of nhs resources...never mind considerations of pain, distress, suffering and loss of earnings to the patient.

Nush has been in constant pain since the operation , with her hamstring rubbing over the screws. She can feel the screws protruding under her skin, which aparently you shouldn't be able to , as they are supposed to be flush with the bone. A wire is unwinding and threatening to burst through her skin.

The worst aspect of this , imo, is that she can't even have it taken out and redone for over a year. She has to recover from the first operation and let the bone strengthen sufficiently before the first lot of pins, rod etc can be safely removed and then it all has to be repeated. I reckon that will be another 2 years minimum and she's losing out workwise the whole time.

I didn't think Nush came across as bitter. She talked about her mother being a nurse and understanding the pressures in the nhs and said something about the surgeon maybe having to do the best he could with whatever is to hand.

I don't know that she is definitely suing either...just something she's considering.

I have a lot of sympathy for Nush in this situation. I suppose its a matter for the experts. If what happened can be seen as a a complication of the first operation I suppose that's tough on her. But if it's negligence I think she should be compensated.

Surely Nush's loss of earnings is down to the twin misfortune of having a) badly broken her leg and b) not been insured for loss of earnings. It is not up to the NHS to compensate people for misfortune.

Luckily for her, despite her having paid very little into the NHS, everyone in need is treated. The last case I saw of IM nailing techniques took four operations to fully repair; however, it does give an incredibly high quality of outcome in most cases - as long as you're prepared to wait!

I wonder how many of the people who grab for medical compensation are 100% perfect at their own job all the time (oh, I forgot - Nush didn't do conventional full-time work).

Nush only has a few rods, pins and screws, whereas Jessica Lynch famously has hundreds, all over her body, damn near everywhere. That's far more painful than anything Nush is ever likely to experience in her life.

Having said that, I do sympathise with Nushy...it must be frustrating and difficult.

It would be wiser to demand the problem be fixed than to go around suing people.
The person who should pay up is the mugger.

Maybe she's suing because they didn't give her enough enemas, so she can go on about botties, farties, poopies some more, gxd that girl had a problem.

She didin't seem in too much pain when we were all at the Embassy club the other night and she was jumping in and out of cab's, running after her pre organised Papparazzo amigo and posing for pictures. Come too think of it i haven't seen those wellies or heard of any tree fornication for a while either.......

I disagree, having a highly paid job in a noble and caring profession shouldn't make you immune from being held accountable for negligence - and whether or not the surgical team in question were negligent is what will be decided upon during the course of Nush's claim. Having been on the receiving end of medical negligence myself, I know that allowing medical professionals to hide behind good intentions is an extremely bad idea. Even on a purely moral level, Nush has an obligation to ensure that the mistakes she suffered from don't happen to anyone else.

Yes, but WE pay for the claim to be processed, and it comes from the money we would otherwise have spent on treatment for someone else. Paying out tax-money to Nush will not ensure better treatment for the next person in the queue - quite the reverse!

There seems to be a general (erroneous) perception that human beings only work in 2 modes - perfection and blameworthy negligence. We aren't entitled to perfection - no one can guarantee it every time. Sometimes we perform better than other times. Some breaks are easier to fix than others. It's not necessarily anyone's fault!

That is not to diminish your serious point about genuine and serious malpractice cases, which fortunately are relatively rare - if we can get rid of frivolous claims, there will be more time, money and attention paid to those which really warrant investigation.

Oh great...no wonder the NHS is short of cash.......

I'd say using the wrong type of screws in Nush's leg (as has been claimed) definitely falls into the category of negligence, rather than a frivolous claim. In any case, it'll be for a court to decide whether the surgeon was negligent. It shouldn't cost the NHS anything if the surgeon's conduct was justifiable. There have been several notable cases of negligence in recent years, including within the NHS, and it serves everyone's interest to root out poor medical practitioners. I can't really follow the argument that it is somehow more cost effective or in the interests of patients to allow dodgy medical professionals to get away with incompetence.

I suppose it depends if it comes out of the surgeons insurance or the general NHS pot...

I do totally agree that the NHS or private practice should be always thinking of the patients interest. I just wonder if that sueing is always the best cose of action?

"Nush is considering making......"

Good God! - the time she took with the nominations should will be dead by the time she has done considering.......

"Frothy PEE!"

It'll come out of the NHS. All medical work on the NHS is covered by NHS indemnity in the event of malpractice liabilities.
If it was carried out privately, then it will be the surgeon's own professional indemnity insurance policy provided by the medical defence organization to which s/he subscribes.

Personally I would be very surprised if the "wrong" screws were intentionally used out of 'negligence'. There are a number of factors which the surgeon has to take into account when deciding on what fixation method and devices to use for each individual case - it comes down to professional judgment which may be imperfect, but hardly negligence. Rarely, the preferred choice of components (screws) may be out of stock at the time (remember it was an emergency operation) in which case the surgeon has to settle for the next best available. Also people do not come in standard sizes -Nush is a very thin girl. There are all kinds of understandable reasons why the screws may have turned out to have been "too long"., if they indeed were. Such problems or complications that become evident after surgery will receive remedial attention as appropriate; that's what follow-up clinic appointments are for.

Obviously I don't have any personal knowledge of Nush's case, but judging from Federico's post above, it seems she has apparently made a very good recovery....Her surgeon couldn't have been particularly negligent, then.

Lets hope for the surgeon's sake you're right - in which case I'm sure they would be glad to be given the opportunity to defend their professional reputation in open court. All I'm saying is that we shouldn't all assume Nush is being frivolous and the surgeon's conduct was impeccable.

Is there any new news on this story? Did Nush need a corrective procedure after all as it's been over three months since the story appeared in the tabloids? Has she sued the NHS?

What Nush should do is firstly, have a frank discussion with her surgeon about her dissatisfaction with her treatment. She may find that a full explanation of the whats and whys of her case will change her understanding and perception of whether surgical incompetency is really to blame. Rushing to legal recourse may be unfounded and certainly does nothing to foster the doctor-patient relationship which has to be based on mutual trust and respect.

But if she wishes to pursue a complaint down the legal road, what she needs to do is get an independent expert opinion (typically some eminent professor in orthopaedics here) to look through her notes and review her treatment including operation details. She would only have a case if it was deemed that her operation was not within the then current accepted international norms of reasonable good practice appropriate for her type of fracture injury.

The surgeon's experience & expertise is of course important but a number of other factors - eg patient factors, injury factors - are equally if not more important in determinng success of outcome. Not to mention luck. Medical practice is an inexact science. Human beings are individuals - each case is unique; someone else with the same fracture as Nush and operated on by the same surgeon in the same manner may unlike her have a complication-free recovery.

I must also point out, one poor case every now and then does not necessarily a bad surgeon make, nor should they have to defend their professional reputation in court on that basis. Current professional regulations require all surgeons to submit all their cases for regular audit review including morbidity & mortality rates. A genuinely poorly performing surgeon will be found out soon enough.

An excellent post that I agree with in its entirety. Thankyou!

The tabloid media in particular I think, foster this perception that doctors are only capable of 'Miracles' or 'Botches', with nothing else in between.