A care worker who had a splinter in his finger ended up having to have it amputated after staff at an NHS urgent treatment centre thought it was “a superficial injury”.
Alan Blakey, who works in a children’s home, had removed the splinter four days after it became lodged in the skin of a finger on his left hand. The finger then became sore and swollen and he attended the centre in Bransholme, Hull.
Alan, who was 49 at the time, had the infected area cleaned and dressed and he was prescribed the antibiotic Flucloxacillin. He was told to return in three days to have the infection reviewed, reports Hull Live.
However, by the morning of his next visit to the centre, run by Hull’s City Healthcare Partnership, the finger had become increasingly painful and swollen.
When he was seen, he told staff he was concerned about a blister that had formed on the little finger of his left hand and another on his right hand.
It was recorded that his temperature and heartbeat were raised, but health workers believed he had only “a superficial injury” and the blister was drained and dressed. Alan, a diabetic, was told to return in another three days.
Later that evening, he was so concerned by his condition that he went to the emergency department at Hull Royal Infirmary. There, he was diagnosed with cellulitis, an infection of the deeper layers of skin and underlying tissue. If not treated promptly the infection can spread through the body and be life threatening.
“By the time I went to A&E I already knew I had poison going up my arm,” Alan explained. “There was tracking, a red line about an inch wide which went up to my armpit from my hand. I also had swelling the size of a golf ball inside my elbow, it was really concerning.”
At the hospital, Alan was found to have an infection from his hand spreading up to his shoulder. He was seen by a hand surgeon the next day and plans were made for surgery to open up the finger and drain the infection. He was also hooked up to intravenous antibiotics.
However, surgery found that an area of the finger tissue was already dead and an amputation was carried out a few days later. “By then my finger had turned green, it was rock solid and I was in a lot of pain,” he said. “The procedure didn’t work, you could see the finger was black and had died.
“When I was told it needed to be amputated, well, there was shock, but at that stage you think, ‘well there’s nothing more that can be done’ and you have to go with it.”
Alan had the finger amputated in January 2019. Four years on, he still suffers pain and discomfort, can no longer play for his five-a-side football team, and will need further surgery to remove nerve endings from the remainder of his finger.
Hudgell Solicitors brought a claim of medical negligence against City Healthcare Partnership CIC, alleging a breach of duty of care. “I took legal advice not long after I came home from hospital because there were things that had stuck in my mind,” Alan said. “When I was at the clinic it was mentioned whether I should be sent to A&E, but it was taken no further.
“Maybe it was because they knew A&E was not coping and they were trying to relieve the pressure. But that doesn’t always work out right, and as it transpires, I lost my finger.
“Then when I was in hospital, staff there even questioned the treatment I’d received. I went from being a healthy person to losing my finger in a week.”
Alan, who also had to give up playing golf, said he now experiences “electric shocks” if he knocks his left hand and can no longer do simple DIY jobs.
He was represented in his claim by charted legal executive Helena Wood. She said: “We believed there was a breach of duty at the health centre, first, because staff failed to act on my client presenting with a high temperature and a raised heartbeat along with his infection.
“This should have indicated the seriousness of the medical situation and the need for him to be referred to hospital as soon as possible. However, no referral was made, instead he was asked to return to the health centre in a further three days.
“Fortunately, my client made the decision to go to the Accident and Emergency Department himself later that day, but nevertheless this still resulted in an avoidable delay of intravenous antibiotics being given and a procedure to clean out the wound being carried out. If those delays had not happened, on the balance of probabilities, he would not have lost his finger.”
In an out of court settlement, City Healthcare Partnership admitted liability and a compensation award for undisclosed damages was agreed. A spokeswoman for the City Healthcare Partnership CIC said: “We cannot comment on individual cases. All complaints from patients are investigated thoroughly and any lessons learned are passed on to services, helping us to continue to improve the quality of our care.”
