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Barnett v Chelsea & Kensington Hospital Management Committee [1969] 1 QB 428, [1968] 1 All ER 1068 (QBD) - Duty of Care case

Three nightwatchmen decided to have a tea-break during their work. They all drank some tea, but soon afterwards they all started vomiting. They went to the local casualty department of the defendant's hospital, which was open. One of the men was more ill than the others, so one of the others reported to a nurse what had happened. The nurse telephoned the casualty officer, who was himself unwell, and told him what had happened, but he did not see the patients, telling the nurse to send them home and to see their own doctors.

The men went away and one of the men died some hours later from what was found to be arsenic poisoning. Cases of arsenic poisoning were rare, and even if the deceased had been examined and admitted to hospital and treated, there was little or no chance that the only effective antidote would have been administered to him before the time at which he died.

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