A&E did not get the basics right – now my son’s life is ruined at 32
A&E Negligence Claims Surge as One Family's Tragedy Exposes Systemic Failures
Constantvpn.com – Emergency departments across England are now the single largest source of clinical negligence claims by volume, a trend that has accelerated sharply over the past half-decade. Behind the statistics sits a growing catalogue of patients whose lives were altered by missed diagnoses, corridor-based care, and the relentless pressure of overstretched emergency teams. One such patient, a 32-year-old digital marketing professional from the Warrington area, went to hospital in May 2024 seeking relief from headaches and dizziness. He was sent home without a brain scan. Seven days later, fluid accumulation in his brain triggered a cardiac arrest from which he never recovered.
Oli Coppock now lives in near-total paralysis, cared for in a neurological rehabilitation unit where his breathing, nutrition, and toileting are managed entirely through tubes. His only means of communication is blinking. His father, Stephen Coppock, says the family of eight – Oli included, alongside six siblings – remains shattered by what happened.
The Missed Scan
Oli had undergone treatment for a brain tumour only months before his May 2024 visit to Warrington Hospital's emergency department. He also carried a recent diagnosis of multiple sclerosis. Despite that history, clinicians assessed his symptoms, ran tests, and discharged him without ordering a CT brain scan. The decision, his family argues, was the single point of failure that set everything else in motion.
By the following week, cerebrospinal fluid had built up against his brain. The resulting pressure caused a cardiac arrest. Oli was resuscitated but never regained consciousness or motor function. He is now confined to a bed, his body twisted and immobile, dependent on mechanical support for every basic biological need.
"The hospital didn't get the basics right and my son has paid a terrible price – it's ruined his life. It was an awful error. He trusted the health service and believed it was there to help him, not destroy him."
Stephen Coppock describes his son's current existence in stark terms:
"There is no worse space for a human to occupy – it's a permanent living nightmare."
Before the incident, Oli was fit, active, and optimistic. He worked in digital marketing, trained regularly at the gym, and performed as a DJ in his spare time. His father says the family has been left "angry and broken" by the loss of that person.
Trust Accepts Liability
North Cheshire and Mersey NHS Foundation Trust, which operates Warrington's A&E department, has accepted that a duty of care was breached by failing to order a CT brain scan. On the balance of probabilities, the trust concedes the scan would have revealed the fluid build-up and prompted surgical intervention to relieve the pressure.
In a written statement, the trust said:
"We are deeply sorry that Mr Coppock did not receive that standard of care that should be expected and we recognise the distress and lasting impact on patients and their families when harm is caused."
An interim damages payment has been agreed between the parties. However, Oli's solicitor, Tanzeela Aslam – head of medical negligence at Express Solicitors – points out that more than two years elapsed before the trust reached that position. In her view, the delay itself compounded the original failure, depriving Oli of timely access to therapies and support services that might have improved his quality of life during the critical early months after his cardiac arrest.
"Oli's case illustrates how preventable errors within the NHS can have devastating and life-changing consequences for individuals and their families."
A Rising Tide of claims
Oli's experience is not an isolated anomaly. A BBC analysis of NHS Resolution data, drawn from published statistics and freedom-of-information requests, shows that A&E-related clinical negligence claims in England climbed from 1,151 in the 2020-21 financial year to more than 1,623 in 2025-26 – a 41 per cent increase over five years. In monetary terms, those claims exceeded £550 million in value last year.
Not every claim results in a payout. Roughly half end in damages being awarded; in others the NHS accepts liability but concludes that compensation is unnecessary. There were periods during the 2010s when the per-attendance claim rate was actually higher than today's figure, before falling. The sustained upward trajectory over the most recent five years, however, is what has alarmed clinicians and patient advocates alike.
The pattern is distinctive to emergency medicine. Comparable surges have not appeared in maternity or orthopaedic departments. The dip recorded in 2020-21 is not attributed to pandemic-era changes in patient behaviour, given that the average interval between an incident and formal claim submission is approximately three years.
Pressure, corridors, and misdiagnosis
Doctors and solicitors point to the same structural drivers: chronic staffing shortages, extended waiting times, and the increasing reliance on corridor care – where patients are held in hallways rather than proper treatment bays. Aslan says she is seeing a growing volume of A&E-linked cases in which misdiagnosis has led to serious injury or death.
"There has been an increased reliance on corridor care for patients, and we are seeing cases across A&E departments of misdiagnoses that have led to serious injury and in some cases death."
Stephen Coppock acknowledges that emergency staff work under enormous strain. Yet he struggles to reconcile that pressure with the specific failure in his son's case: a patient with a known brain tumour and a new neurological diagnosis, presenting with headaches and dizziness, sent home without the one scan that would have caught the complication in time.
For Oli, the question of what might have been – a surgery, a recovery, a return to the gym or the DJ booth – remains unanswered. What is certain is that a single omitted order in an emergency department has converted a young man's future into a permanent, tube-dependent existence, and that his story now sits within a statistical trend that suggests the system's capacity to make similar errors is expanding, not contracting.
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