Trust pays out compensation

9:34am Wednesday 23rd August 2006

YEOVIL District Hospital Found-ation NHS Trust has paid £127,500 to the family of a man who died after doctors twice failed to diagnose his bone cancer.

Teacher Michael Hemming, 58, from North Cadbury, died last year after losing his battle against an aggressive bone cancer.

Doctors at Yeovil Hospital twice misdiagnosed him. Trust bosses admitted in June that there had been a breach of duty of care and details of the compensation were revealed last week.

Staff at the hospital missed the cancer after Mr Hemming went for tests in 1998 and 1999.

He was diagnosed with the rare cancer chondrosarcoma in August 1999 at the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital in Birmingham after his thigh bone spontaneously fractured while trekking in Tibet.

Lawyers for Mr Hemming said he would have had a 70 per cent chance of surviving had doctors spotted the disease earlier.

Mr Hemming's niece, Fiona Richardson, who took up his case after he died last year, said: "He was very angry about the way he was treated.

"He didn't immediately realise anything was wrong, it was only over time he realised there had been a blunder."

A Trust spokesman said it was disappointed its normal very high standards' of care had not occurred in relation to Mr Hemming.

But he added that the Trust was pleased the compensation had been agreed with the family's solicitors without the need for a trial.