Medical Solicitors’ director, Christine Brown, is representing the family of a 48-year-old woman from Rotherham who died following a routine NHS hysterectomy undertaken at a private hospital in the town.
Maxine Spittlehouse died in July 2024 after undergoing a hysterectomy and bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy at Kinvara Private Hospital as an NHS patient.
Shortly after surgery, which she was advised to undergo to manage pain and heavy bleeding caused by fibroids, Maxine collapsed and was transferred to Rotherham Hospital where she sadly died six days later.
An Inquest into her death is to commence on Monday, 28th April at Doncaster Coroner’s Court. Christine will be representing Maxine’s husband David and their daughter Millie during the hearing.
Maxine, David and Mille (c) Spittlehouse family archives
The family hope the Inquest will give them answers to many of their questions, including the suitability of and preparedness of Kinvara Hospital to carry out the surgery.
David said: “Maxine went into hospital for what we thought was a routine operation. We need to understand what went wrong, and just how prepared the private hospital was in meeting her needs post-operatively. People assume that private hospitals are the same, if not better than NHS hospitals, but we want to shine a spotlight on how this may not be case.”
The Spittlehouses are also calling for greater regulation of private hospitals and have launched a petition to lobby the government to review regulations around hysterectomies within private healthcare.
NHS and private sector partnership to cut waiting times
Following the pandemic, private hospitals have routinely and increasingly been used to treat NHS patients in an effort reduce waiting list times.
In January 2025, the government announced a partnership between the NHS and the independent healthcare sector as part of their Elective Care Reform Plan. The deal was devised to tackle specialist areas of treatment with some of the longest waits, such as gynaecology and orthopaedics, with the aim to cut overall NHS waiting times down to 18 weeks.
While this initiative does assist in reducing wait time for treatment, assurances need to be made by the government that these facilities are suited to provide the necessary care for patients.
Christine Brown, a senior solicitor at Medical Solicitors, specialises in gynaecology and fatal medical negligence claims. She says that what happened to Mrs Spittlehouse highlights the consequences of such a deal between NHS and private care.
“Waiting list backlogs for non-urgent, consultant-led treatments remain a huge problem following the pandemic. One solution has been for there to be greater use of the private sector, with particular emphasis on joint operations and gynecological procedures, but patient safety should not be compromised.”