article_snippet: The failure to detect a fracture on an X-ray is the most common diagnostic error made in A&E,' says Michael Kelly, an orthopaedic trauma surgeon .
article_snippet: Every year one person in 100 in the UK breaks a bone, and about half the 20 million or so visits to A&E involve having an X-ray, mostly to check for bone injury.
article_snippet: But research suggests that thousands of patients walk out of A&E with doctors having failed to spot doctors fracture.
article_snippet: ‘Numerous studies have shown that failure to detect a fracture on an X-ray is the most common diagnostic error made in A&E,’ says Mr Kelly.
article_snippet: About half the 20 million or so visits to A&E involve having an X-ray, mostly to check for bone injury .
article_snippet: A study published in the British Medical Journal in 2002 showed that junior doctors in A&E miss up to 39 per cent of ‘clinically significant abnormalities’ on X-rays.
article_snippet: A study at North Tyneside General found that people whose fractures were reviewed only by an A&E doctor were ten times more likely to be wrongly given the all-clear.
article_snippet: And patients whose X-rays were checked by a specialist before patients left A&E were three times less likely to have a missed fracture, according to a 2013 study by the University of Bradford School of Health Studies.
article_snippet: A recent audit of missed fractures and abnormalities at one London hospital revealed that, at worst, A recent audit of missed fractures and abnormalities at one London hospital took 48 days before X-rays were reviewed.
article_snippet: Rebecca Campbell, a clinical negligence solicitor at Slater and Gordon, says Slater and Gordon has seen a rise in cases of patients misdiagnosed with sprains and soft-tissue injuries, only to be later diagnosed with fractures that could be clearly seen in the first radiology images.
article_snippet: People who walk out of surgery with an undiagnosed fracture may not seem obvious victims, but People who walk out of surgery with an undiagnosed fracture lives can still be blighted, says Richard Evans, chief executive of the Society of Radiographers.