Mother Warns Of Nhs Failings After Grandfather Stabbed To Death

Personal injury claims are based firmly on the law of negligence

, which requires that a duty of care existed between a defendant and claimant, that the duty was breached and that the breach caused the harm or injury in question.

Clinical and medical negligence claims work on the same basic principles, with the exception that doctors can escape liability if they can be said to have reached the standard of a responsible body of medical opinion - in other words, if their actions conform to what is normal, they will not usually be found negligent in a court of law.

The National Health Service is often named by patients involving personal injury claims who have suffered illness or injury whilst undergoing operations in hospital; surgical errors and unclean wards etc are often quoted in such cases. Further questions over the extent to which the National Health Service can be held accountable in personal injury claims have been raised after a recent incident involving a man who stabbed his grandfather to death.

On the 24th of July 2009, 30-year-old William Barnard grabbed a kitchen knife, left his flat and walked a short distance to the home of his grandparents, John and Mabel McGrath. Mr McGrath opened the door to his grandson, who proceeded to plunge the knife into his body. William, a paranoid schizophrenic, killed his grandfather after stabbing the 81-year-old no less than 56 times; Mrs McGrath was also injured during the attack. In June, William was committed to Rampton high security hospital.

Judge Michael Stokes QC, upon sentencing William, said that it was a "matter of grave concern" that the NHS had missed several occasions to send William to hospital prior to his grandfather's death.

An independent inquiry into why the Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS trust failed to section William despite repeated requests by his family in the build-up to Mr McGrath's death has now been actioned by solicitors working on behalf of William's mother, Kath Barnard.

A specialist NHS AO team, which was tasked with ensuring that psychiatric patients remain out of hospital, was expected to visit William every 2 weeks. However, it has emerged that the AO gave William his fortnightly injection of Depixol, an anti-psychosis drug, in December 2008 and saw him just 4 times in the following 6 month period.

William's family had warned NHS experts of his deteriorating condition some 30 times prior to Mr McGrath's death. An AO medical team had even visited William on the morning of Mr McGrath's death and despite observing blood stains on the door handle, failed to act.

by: Nathan Payne

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