A woman whose daughter died after being operated on in a Leeds hospital has failed in her claim for compensation for the psychiatric injuries she suffered as a result.

Mrs Ward’s daughter was admitted to hospital for routine surgery to remove her wisdom teeth but died two days later. Mrs Ward became mentally ill and claimed this was a shock reaction to the death of her daughter, which was the result of negligence on the part of the Leeds Hospital Trust.

The court did not agree that Mrs Ward’s illness was a direct result of the events at the hospital, but thought the likely cause was the sudden death of her cherished daughter. The mother had not suffered a psychiatric shock in the accepted sense, because although the doctor had been negligent in his treatment of her daughter prior to her death, Mrs Ward’s mental illness had not been caused by ‘the sudden appreciation by sight or sound of a horrifying event’.