The Voice of Spalding and South Holland
United Lincolnshire Hospitals’ NHS Trust face a fine after a jury found it guilty of breaching health and safety legislation following the death of a Spalding patient at Boston’s Pilgrim Hospital.
The trust was prosecuted following an incident in July 2012 when patient John Biggadike died after suffering “catastrophic” internal injuries when he was impaled on a lifting hoist which was being used to assist him.
The Encore hoist with (to the right) the knee pad which was removed, exposing its metal mounting.
Mr Biggadike (53) fell onto a protruding metal post while the hoist was being used to assist him.
The prosecution alleged that hospital staff were not adequately trained or supervised in the use of the hoist and had removed a knee support pad which should have remained in place. But the defence suggested Mr Biggadike’s death was not caused by failings in training but by a failure to act after a “serious incident” involving a hoist at a hospital in Leicester in 2007.
After a two-week trial at Lincoln Crown Court, a jury took just three hours to find the trust guilty of failing to discharge a duty of care.
The trust will be sentenced on a date to be fixed.
The trial judge, Judge Michael Heath, will have to assess the level of financial penalty to be paid.
He told jurors the sentencing hearing would be a “complicated” process.
