Lessons are failing to be learnt in Scotland's hospitals

Some compensation lawyers like to brand themselves “Health and Safety Lawyers”; others prefer the tag ‘civil litigators’.  Others, like larger than life, head of Thompsons Aberdeen office, Chris Gordon likes to be known as a ‘Top City Lawyer’.

This is of course a piece of self-branding done with tongue thoroughly in cheek.  However the Aberdeen based compensation specialist found himself in the mainstream media this week.

The first of these stories was where my title comes from.  Chris was in the news for standing up for patients of Aberdeen Royal Infirmary for failing to implement improved hygiene measures just 8 months after an outbreak of maggots forced the closure of 3 operating theatres!

It does not take a top city lawyer to realise that an outbreak of maggots in a hospital is not a good thing.

Thompsons of course have been at the forefront of the recent C-diff (Vale of Leven) public inquiry and the forthcoming inquiry into wide scale contraction of Hep-C from contaminated blood products in hospitals.  This has lead to campaigning on behalf of victims wronged by substandard hospital procedures.

Chris was clearly in a strong position, both to speak for those he has compensation action for but also with a wider view to the standards of Scotland’s hospitals.

No sooner had he finished doing interviews in relation to maggots then he was on to dogs.

Chris has developed expertise acting for families who have been affected by dog bites. All of us at Thompsons see regularly the devastating injuries a dog can give a person and especially what dogs can do for children.

Chris this week took off his compensation hat and supported political moves for a ‘one-strike’ policy on dogs that bite people.  The move is aimed at seeing dogs, which have identified themselves as dangerous, put down before they cause serious harm.