BRIAN LESLIE WICKS v EAST KENT HOSPITAL NHS TRUST
The Claimant Brian Wicks, who was 69 years of age at the material time, sustained a peri-prosthetic fracture of his left hip on 10 November 2005.
Previous to the accident in question he had undergone a total hip replacement to his left hip in October 2005. However, on 10 November 2005 he was suffering significant symptoms in his left leg and therefore returned to hospital for Doppler investigations, which fortunately revealed that there was no deep vein thrombosis.
In the early afternoon of 10 November 2005 Mr Wicks was to be returned to his home address by passenger transport, a form of bus. There were two crew members on board the bus. There were two means of exit on the passenger transport bus. Wheelchair users were taken out of the rear doors through on a tail lift. There was an alternative exit through a side door which was to the offside of the bus.
When the bus arrived at the Claimant’s home address he was invited to exit from the offside door. There were 3 steps down from the bus to the road. There was no handrail to assist. The claimant was using crutches at the time. As the Claimant attempted to alight from the bus he fell and sustained an injury to his left side. The crew members of the bus did not assist the Claimant to alight and only assisted him once he had fallen.
As a result of the fall the Claimant suffered a periprosthetic fracture of his left hip. He was returned to hospital and underwent a second major procedure of open reduction and internal fixation of the fracture. Unfortunately there was a degree of post operative infection and the Claimant was in hospital for 5 ½ weeks. It took 10 months for the infection to resolve.
A claim under the Occupiers’ Liability Act was brought against East Kent Hospital NHS Trust. The allegations of negligence were that the crew members had failed to take reasonable care to ensure that patients were reasonably safe and failed to provide a reasonably safe means of exit from the bus for a person reliant upon crutches.
The claim settled without the necessity to issue proceedings and the Claimant recovered the sum of £16,250 in respect of damage.