A PATIENT at Selby War Memorial Hospital whose broken foot went undiagnosed and untreated for two months has been awarded damages by the NHS.

Susan Reader, of Selby, was left in pain and advised not to walk for more than 20 minutes at a time, following the oversight at Selby War Memorial Hospital in 2009.

Mrs Reader, then aged 52, went to the hospital with a swollen right foot which she had damaged in a fall.

It was X-rayed and she was assured it was not broken. But for more than a week Mrs Reader endured more pain before returning to the hospital for help.

She said: “I was in a lot of pain and I knew there was something wrong but you don’t question the doctors, especially when they’d taken an X-ray.

“It turns out they made a whole series of mistakes. The X-ray showed the bone was broken, but they just didn’t tell me and, to start with, didn’t do anything about it.”

In fact the X-ray had been reviewed by a radiologist at York Hospital where a fracture just above her small toe was identified. When Mrs Reader returned to Selby War Memorial Hospital she was not told about the X-ray review or the break but was instead given a two-week sick note for an ankle injury.

Still in pain, Mrs Reader visited her GP on October 28 and again on November 10.

After the second visit, when the GP examined her X-ray, she was told she had a fracture.

The pain continued and so a second X-ray was carried out eventually revealing a break to the fifth metatarsal bone.

In April, five months after the original accident and misdiagnosis, Mrs Reader started treatment with a bone stimulator to aid the healing process.

Lawyer Caroline Murgatroyd, who took on the case, said: “It was clear that there had been a two-month delay in Mrs Reader receiving the correct treatment and this had caused her bone to heal more slowly than normal.

“The level of pain and discomfort that followed was also a result of the delay.”

A spokesman for NHS North Yorkshire and York said the case was settled in the summer of of 2011 and that they were unable to comment on individual cases.