A WIDOWER fighting the NHS for compensation over his wife’s life-changing stroke has been left stunned after a judge ruled he was entitled to nothing.

Tim Owers from Aston, whose wife Karen died last August at the age of 42 after four years of being severely disabled, said the High Court ruling was “hugely disappointing”.

He said: “The judge accepted there were failures in the system but we are in the same position as five years ago. The whole thing could happen all over again to someone else.”

His wife suffered a stroke on Mother’s Day 2010 when visiting her husband’s parents in Kent. She was taken to Kent’s Medway Maritime Hospital but was told to go home and sleep it off.

Mr Owers argued that with different treatment the outcome may have been different and took the Medway NHS Foundation Trust in Kent and the NHS Commissioning Board to the High Court for compensation.

High Court judge Mr Justice Stewart said that the case highlighted failures in the system but he said that even if medical staff had given her the appropriate medication when they should, the tragic outcome would most likely have still occurred.

The conclusion meant Mr Owers would not receive any compensation.

Mr Owers, a former software developer who was recently made redundant, said a positive outcome by way of compensation or admission of blame from the trust would have helped him and his son.

He said that counselling had revealed that his son Jake, nine at the time, had thought his mum had died in 2010 and been replaced by another body as she was so different.

He said: “We wanted them to say sorry but we haven’t heard anything from them – if they did apologise from Jake’s point of view that might help.”

Mrs Owers had worked as a nurse in Kent before moving to Oxfordshire.

When Jake was five she began helping out at Aston & Cote Primary School and was training to be a teacher before the stroke.

Mr Owers said the decision left him shocked and that the last five years had been a “waste of time”.

On delivering his judgment Mr Justice Stewart said the hospital acted in breach of its duty of care towards Mrs Owers.

But he ruled that the family’s lawyers had failed to prove that the hospital’s admitted negligence caused Mrs Owers’ disabilities and eventual death.

Spokeswoman for Medway NHS Foundation Trust, Harinder Rai, said: “The Trust sincerely regrets and apologises for the fact that Mrs Owers was discharged when she should have remained in hospital.

“Although there were shortfalls in the management of Mrs Owers’ case there has been a significant improvement in stroke services at Medway since the event, which took place when specialist units were in their relative infancy.”