Legal News

A disciplinary hearing has heard how a paramedic on call shopped in Marks and Spencer while an elderly patient with sepsis was waiting in an ambulance to be taken to hospital.

BBC News reports that on 9 March 2013, paramedic Dominic Colella was called to attend an 85-year-old man with sepsis, who had collapsed in a queue at a London branch of M&S.

The elderly patient was made to wait inside an ambulance for 20 minutes until Mr Colella returned with two full bags of shopping from the store

Giving evidence at the disciplinary hearing – which Mr Colella did not attend – colleague and fellow paramedic Yvonne Purves said that the elderly man had lost consciousness at the store, and had then been moved to the ambulance after regaining consciousness.

The Health and Care Professionals Council was told that Ms Purves “had wondered” where Mr Colella had gone after she waited for some time in the ambulance with the elderly patient and his wife.

Ms Purves told the hearing:

“The wife was understandably anxious about what had happened to her husband and was wondering why we weren't leaving to go to hospital,” she said.

“He then came back with two full bags of shopping and loaded them in to the front of the ambulance and flippantly said, 'Do you want to go to hospital then?'

“Obviously, I wanted to go to hospital some time ago. I waited twenty minutes for Mr Colella while alone in the ambulance,” Ms Purves added.

It is alleged that on another emergency callout, Mr Colella went and had his hair cut instead of taking a patient with a head injury to hospital.

Mr Colella is facing two counts of misconduct and has since resigned from the London Ambulance Service.

The panel was advised he could not attend the hearing because he was working.

The hearing continues.

Duncan Lewis Clinical Negligence Solicitors – No win no fee Claims Against Paramedics

Duncan Lewis clinical negligence solicitors can advise NHS patients and private health patients who have suffered injury as a result of negligence by paramedics and ambulance crews on how to make a no win no fee claim for compensation – including claims relating to:

• Ambulances failing to arrive
• Delays in ambulances arriving
• Delays in transfer or referral by ambulance staff
• Failure to treat A&E patients
• Prescribing errors by paramedics
• Wrong medical treatment by ambulance crews and paramedics.

Clinical negligence patients can claim for paramedic negligence for up to three years after injury. Children can make clinical negligence compensation claims against paramedics up to the age of 21.

For expert legal advice on no win no fee Claims Against Paramedics, call Duncan Lewis Clinical Negligence Solicitors on 020 7923 4020.