Delayed diagnosis of a scaphoid/wrist fracture claim

What is a scaphoid fracture?

If you’ve suffered a sports injury, fall onto an outstretched hand or a motorcycle injury you may have fractured the small scaphoid bone in your wrist. This might only become clear when the symptoms in your wrist persist. Any delay in the diagnosis of a scaphoid fracture can have serious consequences because of the limited blood supply to this bone.

If you are told late that the scaphoid bone has been fractured, let us help you check if there might a legal claim because this could cause significant long-term problems.

What can go wrong?

Delayed diagnosis of a scaphoid fracture can form the basis of a legal claim. The reasons for this are often due to:

• Failing to perform an appropriate examination to identify the possibility of a scaphoid fracture;
• Not having enough clinical suspicion to consider this and investigate further;
• Failing to take a complete history as to the circumstances of an accident/fall;
• Not carrying out x-rays from the correct angle to look for a scaphoid fracture;
• Failing to put the hand in a cast & repeat the x-ray in 14 days, even if the 1st x-ray is clear
• There is often a scaphoid fracture pathway in many A&E Departments, but this is still not followed!

What are the consequences?

If the diagnosis of a scaphoid fracture is delayed beyond 3 weeks, the fracture will start to heal in the wrong place. This can cause:

• The need for open surgery and bone grafts;
• Non-union of the scaphoid fracture;
• SNAC (scaphoid non-union advanced collapse); and/or
• Additional arthritis in the wrist joints.

If the above damage occurs in a dominant wrist the impact can be serious and the patient might need to retrain if they are no longer able to complete all the physical tasks with their previous job.

Let us see if we can help you if you’ve been told of a scaphoid fracture a few weeks after the injury occurred.