Young Man Compensated for Five-Year Delay in Diagnosing Tumour

A young man has achieved a seven-figure compensation settlement after doctors failed to spot a tumour on his spine, leading to a five-year delay in diagnosis.

After suffering from back pain for about a year, the man went to see his GP and was referred to hospital for an MRI scan. The MRI scan showed a large mass filling the spinal canal, but doctors failed to identify that he had a tumour. He was eighteen years old at the time.

Over the next five years he experienced ongoing back pain, and made a number of visits to his GP surgery and the hospital's accident and emergency department. He was prescribed painkillers and sent for physiotherapy. The pain severely affected his sleep and caused him to give up playing football.

It was only after he told his GP that the pain was spreading from his lower back to his legs and was causing numbness that he was referred for another MRI scan, which led to the tumour being identified. By now aged 23, he underwent a 14-hour operation to remove the tumour. He has been left with lifelong nerve damage and suffers from incontinence.

He brought a claim against the NHS trust responsible for the hospital, arguing that the delay in diagnosis had been negligent. The trust admitted that the failure to identify the tumour following the initial MRI scan had been a breach of duty and that, had it not been missed, he would probably have had surgery five years earlier, which would have been less complicated as the tumour would have been smaller. A settlement of his claim for £1.5 million was agreed.