Accident & Emergency departments are pressured environments, but patients are entitled to a reasonable standard of assessment before being sent home. A&E negligence claims arise when a serious, treatable condition is missed and the patient is discharged — often with reassurance — only for the condition to progress to serious harm.
The conditions most often missed in A&E are well known: heart attacks (chest pain put down to indigestion or anxiety), strokes and bleeds on the brain, sepsis and meningitis, appendicitis, fractures missed on X-ray or never X-rayed at all, significant head injuries discharged without scanning, DVT and pulmonary embolism, and ruptured or leaking abdominal aortic aneurysms. In each case there are recognised assessment pathways — ECGs and troponin tests for chest pain, CT scans for head injury under NICE guidance, sepsis screening, imaging review — that should catch the condition.
A claim must show that the assessment fell below the standard of a reasonably competent emergency clinician — for example, an X-ray misread, red-flag symptoms not investigated, or abnormal observations not acted on — and that proper care would probably have avoided the harm. Records of triage notes, observations and imaging are central evidence, and hospitals' own patient safety investigations (formerly "serious incident" investigations — since 2023 run under the Patient Safety Incident Response Framework) often support the claim.
Compensation depends on the missed condition and its consequences: from £10,000–£50,000 for a missed fracture with delayed recovery, to six and seven figures where a missed heart attack, stroke, sepsis or aneurysm causes permanent disability. Fatal cases are brought by the family under the Fatal Accidents Act 1976. The limitation period is generally 3 years from the harm or date of knowledge.