THE Farnham woman who has strongly criticised the Royal Surrey County Hospital after her mother was sent home twice with a broken neck, is celebrating now that an independent consultant has found the hospital guilty of "unreasonable clinical treatment."

Jane Cole's mother Violet Mitchell broke her neck after falling down the stairs on September 21 last year but despite complaining of unbearable pain in her neck, doctors refused her an X-ray and sent her home the next day.

In worsening pain, Mrs Mitchell was finally X-rayed two days later but the break was still not detected by doctors.

The "hangman's fracture" one of the most serious types of breaks, which could have resulted in complete paralysis, was finally detected by a consultant radiologist the next day.

Medical staff argued that it was Mrs Mitchell's arthritis, which made the X-ray particularly hard to interpret.

Following several letters of complaint from Mrs Cole, Roger Evans, a consultant from the A and E department at Cardiff Hospital was brought in by the Royal Surrey as an independent advisor to investigate the case.

In his review, Mr Evans concluded that staff were guilty of providing inappropriate clinical treatment, starting with the failure to X-ray Mrs Mitchell's neck when she was first admitted to hospital.

"An elderly person who has fallen down stairs and is complaining of severe pain in the neck should have had their neck examined to identify any damage to the spinal chord," he said.

Although Mr Evans accepts that Mrs Mitchell's arthritis may have hindered efforts to spot the break, he believes that doctors should still have been able to diagnose the fracture.

"I believe that this fracture was diagnosable on the films taken on September 23 and that a diagnosis was not made because doctors were under pressure on that evening because the department was busy."

Mr Evans has criticised a breakdown in communication between the hospital and the ambulance service which led to Mrs Mitchell being moved without head support when she was admitted for the second time.

The findings have come as a relief to Mrs Cole who has launched a "stressful and exhausting" campaign to expose what she felt was the incompetence of medical staff.

Her determination that the case should be investigated by an independent body was prompted by the response from the chief executive of the hospital, Jeff Faulkner.

Mr Faulkner's letter spelled out a largely different version of events and was labelled " a pack of lies and an insult to the intelligence" by Mrs Cole.

He described Mrs Mitchell as "smiling and looking well" on her first visit to the hospital and having full range of movement in her neck, which was why staff did not think the neck was broken.

Mrs Cole maintains that her mother was in "unbearable pain" and looked like a corpse.

Although pleased that Mr Evans has ruled in her favour, Mrs Cole is not entirely satisfied,

"I am annoyed that the hospital still doubts my version of events. My mother is a 71-year -old lady and she had fallen down 14 stairs.

"Now you tell me that did not dictate an X-ray, no matter how 'well' the doctor felt she looked. I can't believe that despite the findings of Mr Evan's report, medical staff and consultants still felt they acted reasonably.

"However if nothing else I want this to show people that you needn't be fobbed off by chief executives and if you believe you're right you can win in the end."