NHS legal challenge leaves paralysed bedsore victim's £3m payout at risk

Christine Reaney suffered devastating injuries during extended stays at Cannock Chase Hospital, Stafford Hospital and North Staffordshire Royal Infirmary.

The sores were so severe that they infected her bone marrow, shortened her leg muscle tissues and resulted in a hip dislocation, leaving her largely bed-bound.

The NHS accepted liability for the injuries in a hearing in London last year but the case is now back in court following an appeal by health service lawyers. If successful, it would result in Mrs Reaney's pay-out being reduced to only a fraction of the £2m-£3m she expected to receive.

David Westcott QC argues it would be wrong for the NHS to pay for care in relation to a disability it did not cause.

Mrs Reaney had been struck down in 2008 by myelitis, an inflammation of the spinal cord, which left her paralysed from the chest downwards, the High Court heard last year. This meant she would have needed extensive care - whether or not she had suffered injuries from the pressure sores, he said.

"The judge ought readily to have accepted that the defendants could not have caused or even contributed to the causation of a need for care such as that occasioned by her paraplegia that had already occurred," said the QC.

"They had not caused the underlying paraplegia, they had therefore not caused the need for care and other services provoked thereby.

"Accordingly, they cannot be held responsible in damages for the cost of meeting those needs."

He said the judge explicitly found that she would have needed significant physiotherapy support on an annual basis, even if it had not been for the hospitals' mismanagement of her condition.

"Yet he fixed the defendants with a responsibility to meet the cost of a need for physiotherapy that it had not caused," said Mr Westcott.

Last year, the High Court heard that Mrs Reaney, of Beaudesert, Burntwood, was 61 and still enjoying an active life when she was struck down by myelitis.

She was admitted to hospitals several times between December 2008 and October 2009, during which she suffered the sores.

Her lawyers said staff failed to take appropriate measures to stop the sores developing into something far more serious.

She was left unable to achieve a comfortable posture, suffering spasms in her lower limbs and only able to sit in her wheelchair for up to four hours at a time.

Although the sores have since cleared up, they have left her skin scarred and extremely vulnerable, so that she has to be regularly turned in her bed.

She sued the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust and University Hospital of North Staffordshire NHS Trust over the injuries and they are now appealing. The hearing continues.