At present there are 29 Emergency Departments in Ireland and there were over 1.32 million attendances to the hospital emergency departments across Ireland in 2018. They are as we know the first point of treatment in hospitals for patients with significant injury or serious illness and provide 24 hour 365 care.

There is significant pressure on A&E staff who must handle a large range of medical issues efficiently but also with patient wellbeing and safety paramount. The A&E staff will have to assess each patient presenting and if required transfer patients to specialist departments for further care.  It is therefore of most importance that all staff in A&E departments from triage nurses to doctors are experienced and use good clinical judgement and that they properly understand and follow specific hospital guidelines.

The legal standard of care in Ireland by which the actions of A&E staff are judged in a claim for negligence is whether that care fell below that of a reasonably competent medical practitioner or otherwise move from a general and approved practice that no other nurse or doctor would have if he or she was taking ordinary reasonable care.

There are a wide variety of injuries which are dealt with by an Emergency Department and most patients receive sufficiently correct treatment, however things can go wrong leading to serious health problems for the patient down the line.

Typical situations we have seen over the years having represented clients can include:

• Inadequate examination of the patient
• Failing to properly diagnose fractures
• Failing to diagnose serious conditions such as appendicitis or cauda equina syndrome which is a dysfunction of multiple lower back nerve roots/spine injury
• Failing to diagnose a serious medical condition where the patient has presented with symptoms such as headache or general pain and been let go home with painkillers
• Delay in diagnosing meningitis, often with damaging consequences
• Failing to request correct diagnostic tests and scans such as MRI/CT

Our Accident and Emergency (A&E) negligence compensation claims solicitors

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