High Street optician admits negligence led to boy's vision loss
Gemma Wells has secured a full admission of liability on behalf of her young client Oscar who has permanent sight loss after an inadequate eye examination at a high street optician in Surrey.
The high street optician chain has admitted that negligence led to delays in diagnosing a rare, congenital eye disorder, Coats' disease, which resulted in Oscar waking up blind in one eye later that year.
Oscar, who was in his early teens at the time, attended a well-known high street optician branch in Surrey for a routine check-up with a senior optician in June. The optician did not perform an adequate clinical examination with dilated pupils to examine the peripheral retina and failed to carry out indirect ophthalmoscopy. He concluded that Oscar's eyesight and eye health were normal with no abnormalities identified.
In late October Oscar woke up with vision loss in the centre of his left eye and returned to the same branch of opticians for an examination and was urgently referred to the Royal Surrey County Hospital for further checks. Oscar's parents asked the opticians whether there were any abnormalities in the eye scans taken in June and they were told they had been normal.
Doctors at Royal Surrey suspected Oscar had Coats' disease and he was sent to Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH), where he underwent urgent eye surgery and blood tests, which confirmed he had the condition.
Coats disease, also known as exudative retinitis, is a very rare eye condition that affects the smaller blood vessels found in the retina. GOSH told the family that it would have been highly unusual for the disease to progress as it did if the examination results from June had been normal. The scans requested from the Surrey opticians showed there was evidence of Coats' disease at the time, which should have resulted in a referral for eye surgery.
Since the diagnosis, Oscar has had three surgeries on his left eye and is scheduled to have additional surgery this year. He has suffered permanent damage and vision loss. If Coats' disease had been picked up and treated in June, the vision in Oscar's left eye would have been protected and permanent vision loss avoided.
Oscar's family instructed Gemma in a medical negligence claim against the Surrey Opticians and within the same year a full admission of liability was secured. The Opticians accepts a breach of duty in Oscar's care for the optician's failure to conduct an adequate clinical examination. The company agrees that but for this breach of duty, Oscar is likely to have been seen and treated before a significant worsening of the condition and would have had a better visual outcome.
The family said after the admission of liability:
"I couldn’t recommend Gemma Wells highly enough. Following on from our son’s sight loss due to negligence, Gemma visited us and really listened to our claim. Gemma was highly professional but equally as caring. We felt straight away that Gemma would do her upmost for our son and she did just that. Gemma secured a positive outcome and we can’t thank her enough."
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For further information about delayed diagnosis claims or medical negligence claims please call Gemma Wells on 0330 460 6549 or email gemma.wells@fieldfisher.com
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