Summary
Mr C complained to us about emergency treatment he received at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh after injuring his knee. He attended A&E at the hospital, where his injury was diagnosed as a soft tissue injury. Mr C was given advice on pain relief and told to see his GP if the pain persisted.
About a month later Mr C saw his GP, as the pain was continuing. An x-ray was taken of his leg and this showed a stress fracture.
The independent advice we received from a specialist in emergency medicine, which we accept, was that Mr C should have received an x-ray when he first attended A&E. As such, we upheld the complaint. However, we were advised that due to the nature of Mr C's injury it was unlikely this x-ray would have identified the fracture and it was therefore unlikely that this would have altered his treatment.
Recommendations
We recommended that the board: apologise to Mr C for the failure to arrange an x-ray of his leg injury; and share the findings of this investigation with the staff in question and ask them to reflect on this for their future practice.
Related reading
View Decision Report 201507461 as a PDF (12.53 KB) Updated: March 13, 2018