THE Royal Surrey County Hospital is challenging an order to pay £100,000 in legal costs and £2,500 in damages to an 80-year- old Grayshott woman who took it to court after she had a breast removed. A judge earlier this year said the NHS hospital's "chaotically inadequate" procedures meant Kathleen Elliott was never in a position to give "informed consent" to the removal of her left breast. A letter informing Mrs Elliott of her options - including less radical treatment or simply "doing nothing" - had not been posted to her by the time she went into the Guildford hospital for the operation. Judge Reid QC told Guildford County Court that Mrs Elliott, now 86 and in a nursing home, was even asked to sign, in a "very shaky" hand, a crucial alteration to a consent form as she waited on a hospital trolley before being pushed into the operating room. Although Judge Reid accepted the operation was necessary, and Mrs Elliott would probably have given her consent even had she been informed of all the options, he said she had been "deprived of the choice which was her right". He awarded Mrs Elliott, who for many years ran the Tuck Shop sweet shop in Grayshott, £2,500 damages for "upset, worry and distress". But at the Court of Appeal in London last Friday, Ranald Davidson, for the NHS trust, said the judge had "no power" to make the award after finding that the hospital's "breach of duty" had caused her no loss. The trust was also left facing a bill of more than £100,000 after it was ordered to pay two-thirds of Mrs Elliott's legal costs. The trust was granted permission to appeal, but no date was set for the hearing.
