EWS is a water purification, water recovery and process filtration company specialising in the design, manufacture and supply of reverse osmosis, filtration, deionisation, and base exchange water softeners with experience of turnkey projects across a range of industries. Following on from the recent acquisition by Amplio of a majority stake in Puresep Holdings this latest acquisition continues to enhance Amplio Filtration's position in the large, growing and fragmented UK market.

The Devonshires team was led by Louise Eldridge in the Corporate Department, supported by Charles Tetlow and Richard Smith (Corporate) and Shivali Chaudhry, Nicola Philp and Amanda Harvey (Employment / Pensions).

She was given the money after it was revealed doctors had spotted tell-tale signs of lung cancer more than three years ago, but these had not been treated.

Mrs Hardingham, 65, of Maunders Drive, Trowbridge, said that the hospital’s mistake makes her furious but she doesn’t want to waste her energy being upset.

“I’m furious, I get times when I get very very angry. I just want to do something to make the RUH stop and look at what they are doing. I don’t want this to happen to another family because it is very difficult for my family.

“You do cope, you have to cope. I have had plenty of tears about the whole thing but it’s exhausting.”

Mrs Hardingham has suffered a catalogue of heartbreaks in the past few years.

Her own health started to fail after the death of her daughter Sian, aged 26, from a brain tumour in 2004.

In June last year her husband, James, 60, died from heart failure.

Mrs Hardingham, who along with her husband had served on the old West Wiltshire District Council, says she only discovered by chance that doctors had spotted a shadow on her lung back in 2007.

She had been treated by the hospital since suffering a heart attack in 2004 just months after her daughter’s death.

In March 2009 she was rushed to hospital suffering from arrhythmia (heart palpitations).

She said: “I had inhaled a lot of vomit on the way to hospital and went into cardiac arrest en route. They managed to get me back and I was taken to intensive care where I stayed for four weeks on a ventilator. I wasn’t expected to live.

“I started to come round from this coma and I spent a further 10 weeks recovering and learning to walk again.”

Then days before she was due to go home, a doctor told her she had a shadow on her left lung and that she would need a bronchoscopy as it looked suspicious.

The grandmother-of-three was then shocked to be told by a junior doctor that the shadow had been picked up on an X-ray two years earlier.

“The radiographer had written on the report ‘patient should be dealt with antibiotics and an X-ray within six weeks’.” But this did not happen Still reeling from the news, she went home to be looked after by her elder daughter Helen Main, 40. Two days later on June 9, 2009 her husband died suddenly at their home from heart failure.

She said: “My husband hadn’t coped well throughout my illness and I think the stress didn’t help.”

A bronchoscopy confirmed Mrs Hardingham was suffering from cancer and it was inoperable.

She was given radiotherapy in November last year and was then told that she would only have a year to live.

“I’m determined to prove them absolutely wrong. I find it hard to accept because I feel better and better. I have gone the other way, I was really ill when I was diagnosed and I just keep feeling better whereas cancer patients usually start feeling worse.”

She decided to take legal action against the RUH and was helped by specialist solicitors, Devonshires, based in London.

In June the RUH paid her £75,000 compensation.

Liz Bryant who was working on behalf of Devonshires solicitors said: “There was a clinical negligence case regarding the Royal United Hospital in Bath. We did settle this case in June.

“It’s amazing that it was settled so quickly.”

Tim Craft, Medical Director at the RUH said: “We are sorry that Mrs Hardingham’s care did not meet the high standards we would expect to give, and that she is entitled to receive. We are in regular communication with Mrs Hardingham and have met with her to discuss her concerns.”

Another spokesman said the hospital could confirm that the NHS Litigation Authority had agreed a compensation settlement with Mrs Hardingham.

Cantifix, which was established in 1986, specialises in architectural custom glazing and built glass structures for both commercial and residential projects.

Amplio Group is a private equity investment group specialising in acquiring and developing businesses in growth industries which include filtration, renewable energy, alternative fuels, recycling, environmental services and specialty healthcare. The acquisition is the first geographic expansion for Amplio Filtration, a subsidiary of Amplio Group which last year acquired NASDAQ listed Basin Water Inc out of Chapter 11 and subsequently formed Envirogen Technologies Inc.

Puresep Holdings is the holding company of Puresep Water Filtration Limited, Puresep Filtration Technologies Limited and Puresep Water Technologies Limited. The Puresep group of companies boasts a comprehensive range of conventional and leading edge water treatment and process filtration technologies and the acquisition gives Amplio Filtration a solid foothold in the large, growing and fragmented UK market.

The Devonshires team was led by Louise Eldridge in the Corporate Department, supported by Zulon Begum (Corporate) and Shivali Chaudhry (Employment).

As a result of this and the lobbying of other faith organisations, religious groups were granted the key exemptions that they were seeking.

Nick Grant said, "Faith Groups had serious concerns about the impact that the Equality Act would have on the way they operate.  I am delighted that Devonshires were able to play an important role in co-ordinating a powerful religious coalition to represent these concerns at the highest level of government.  I was extremely pleased to collect the 'Making a Stand for Justice' award on behalf of Devonshires."

The decision under challenge is that, in order to be considered charitable, fee paying schools now need to demonstrate that they provide a public benefit through means-tested assisted places or other services to their local community above and beyond providing education to their fee-paying pupils. The schools are claiming that this is a misinterpretation of the Charities Act 2006 and that their provision of education provides a public benefit on its own.

The proposal to refer the case to the Upper Tribunal is also significant. If the case were not referred to this higher tribunal, it would be heard in the less specialised Administrative Court, which could only have ruled whether the Charity Commission’s decision was right or wrong in the case in question. It could not have made a wider ruling on future interpretation of the law. The move indicates the importance that is being attached to the new public benefit test and the Charity Commission’s related decisions relating to fee-paying schools and other fee paying charities such as care homes which used to be assumed to be charitable without any need to pass the public benefit test.

Many operators of schools and care homes registered each as charities will be surprised that a challenge has not been made sooner. 

We will provide further information when a date for the hearing is confirmed.  For further information please contact charles.tetlow@devonshires.co.uk

Click here to read the press release from the Pensions Board.

The Devonshires’ Banking Team was led by Andrew Cowan assisted by Carolyn Thomas with Sharon Kirkham leading on the property aspects.

TradeRisks acted as arranger of the facility and Santander were represented by Clifford Chance LLP.