A BUSINESSMAN whose beloved wife was poleaxed by a devastating stroke due to negligence at a Swindon hospital has won £185,000 damages from the NHS.

Julie Robinson suffered crippling brain damage after suffering a stroke following her discharge from Swindon's Great Western Hospital in 2010.
Her husband, Edward Robinson, 59, claimed that could have been avoided had medics prescribed a simple 300mg aspirin dose before sending her home.

Mr Robinson's lawyers were also critical of the care his wife received at the hospital in October 2010 – two months before the stroke.

The widower, who with his wife once ran a flourishing office furniture business, sued the Great Western Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.

Judge Michael Yelton, sitting in London's High Court, said Mr Robinson had to give up work to care for his stricken wife after her stroke. And in a tragic, but unrelated, development, Mrs Robinson died of throat cancer in December last year, aged just 59.

On top of that Mr Robinson's business collapsed due to the time he had to spend away from his desk, said the judge.

As a result the couple lost their home in Mrs Robinson's declining years, and were forced to move to smaller accommodation.

The judge described Mrs Robinson as a fit and resolute woman before she succumbed to the stroke. As well as raising two children she had played a key role in helping her husband run his business.

Mr Robinson, of Fairford, Gloucestershire, claimed damages on behalf of his wife's estate. He had also lodged a claim on his own behalf for the horror and trauma he suffered at witnessing his wife's stroke.

The court heard that the couple had known each other as teenage sweethearts - marrying when they were both aged 21.

In his ruling, Judge Yelton dismissed claims that failing to prescribe aspirin caused or contributed to the stroke. But he ruled the GWH was at fault in delaying crucial abdominal surgery in October 2010. Had this surgery taken place 11 days earlier, the complications that lay behind her stroke would have been avoided.

The judge found that Mrs Robinson would, on the balance of probabilities, not have suffered the stroke had the surgery been carried out earlier.
He went on to dismiss Mr Robinson's own damages claim as a secondary victim.

The judge accepted that he had endured the horror of witnessing his wife's stroke and suffered post traumatic stress disorder. But the facts were not sufficiently exceptional to justify an award of compensation, he ruled.

The widower's damages, in relation to his wife's stroke, were agreed at £185,000.