[2025] EWHC 2025 (KB)

On 10 October 2019, the claimant wrote a letter of complaint to the private hospital where she had the surgery. This letter was focussed on complaints about her treatment by the defendant after surgery and the severe, life changing complications she endured afterwards. The claimant’s letter says that at her appointment with the defendant on 14 August 2019 she “explained to him at this time that I believed I had an anal stenosis”. The letter did not contain any complaint about her treatment prior to surgery, nor any complaint about not having been informed of the risks of surgery or of not being informed of other non-surgical treatment options. She said that she did not complain in this letter about her treatment by the defendant prior to surgery because it was “not at the forefront of my mind as I was complaining about a lot of other things”. She also said that she did not include her complaint about the defendant’s advice prior to the surgery because “I was afraid to complain because I was worried I was going to lose my job” (presumably because her employer owned the private hospital where she saw the defendant and had the surgery). She accepted that she could have raised these concerns during the complaint process but “I had a lot going on due to my health”.

The defendant replied to this letter of complaint by letter dated 21 November 2019. Of relevance, his letter said:

A letter in response dated 11 February 2020 was sent to the defendant by the hospital Director. This letter contained comments from the claimant in respect of passages of the defendant’s 21 November 2019 letter. In cross-examination it was put to the claimant that again she did not raise any complaint about the defendant’s treatment of her prior to surgery and about his failure to advise her about alternatives to surgery and nor did she contradict what the defendant had said about these in his 21 November 2019 letter of reply. She said that there was no discussion about alternatives and therefore she was not aware of any such alternatives.

In cross-examination the claimant denied that her evidence has been influenced by the outcome of the surgery and her unhappiness with the defendant. She said that if she had been given the options of non-surgical treatments, she would not have had the surgery whatever grades her haemorrhoids were. She accepted that what she is saying is that if she had been told she would get the outcome from the surgery that she did, then she would not have had the surgery. She said that if the defendant had explained to her the extent to which anal stenosis causes damage she would not have gone ahead with the surgery. The mention of anal stenosis is only in the EIDO leaflet and the consent form. The defendant did not ever explain this to her verbally. It was pointed out to her that anal stenosis occurs in less than 1% of cases and therefore this risk would not have affected her decision to have the operation. She said that she would still have opted to try non-surgical options first.