An expert witness was criticised by Mr Justice Martin Spencer in the case of Arksey v Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
Mrs Arksey brought a medical negligence action in relation to the NHS Trust’s failure to admit her to hospital after she had suffered from a cerebral aneurysm. The Trust had admitted negligence - to a degree. It was denied, however, that the negligence made any causative difference to the outcome.
Mrs Arksey suffered a sentinel bleed from a cerebral aneurism whilst at home. She attended hospital, but was discharged. The following day she had a major haemorrhage which resulted in permanent brain damage. The Trust accepted that a breach of duty had occurred when she was not admitted.
The claimant’s case was that the hospital had a protocol for patients waiting to have a coil fitted in their aneurism, whereby they were admitted to hospital and given bed rest, blood pressure monitoring and appropriate hydration.
A consultant neurosurgeon, her expert witness, stated that - in his opinion it was uncommon for a new haemorrhage to occur whilst awaiting a coil in hospital and therefore, had she been admitted it was unlikely that it would have occurred.
The defence’s expert disagreed with this, stating that being hospital would not have avoided the haemorrhage the following day.
Mrs Arkseys’s case rested on expert evidence, but the judge found that this evidence was subject to some shortcomings. He remarked that her witness’s evidence “fell far below the standard to be expected of a reasonable, competent expert witness both in the preparation of his reports and in relation to his preparing to give evidence.”
“.....In addition, at one stage he even used an expletive, and there was a failure on his part to address the questions that he was being asked.”
The judge also criticised Mrs Arksey’s lawyers for not ensuring the expert’s report was completely compliant with Civil Procedure Rule 35. He commented that they allowed the witness “....to go into the witness box despite there being clear and obvious deficiencies in his written evidence, and this was something which should have been addressed by the lawyers long before the trial.”
Conversely, the judge found the defendant’s witness to be straightforward and reliable, having prepared reports which fully complied with Part 35 of the Civil Procedure Rules. He stated that he preferred the defence witness’s evidence on every point of dispute and found for the defendant on the main issue.
