Medical Negligence?

[LukeR94]

Anyone got any advice, or can recommend any good ones in the Leeds area?

My grandfather has terminal stomach cancer and in the last few weeks he has been having pains in his bowels. He phoned his doctor as he knew something was wrong and they advised that it was just indegestion and to take some tablets, so my grandad did and he was still the same, he went again to another doctor who advised his stomach was swollen and to take some laxatives, as this point he had not passed for about a week.

Then this week he had to go to hospital as he felt really bad, they then found out he has a bowel blockage and this should have been found out earlier (by one of the two doctors) and he should have been referred to be checked out, this has caused swelling and his lungs have been compressed giving him hypothermia, and he is now in intensive care, the nurses at the hospital have advised that due to this his lifespan will now be reduced, he was terminal to begin with but this has reduced it further. my family are deeply upset and feel that this negligence has caused my grandfather, who is a lovely man to have to part the earth sooner that he should have to due to this.

Any advice?

ETA: Mods feel free to move if its in the wrong section!

Edited by LukeR94 on Friday 17th October 11:56

[randlemarcus]

Firstly, spend as much quality time with your Grandfather as you can right now, and sympathy for your horrible situation.

I'd suggest looking at your local NHS Trust website, and if all care providers come under their wing in theory, you have a single route of complaint that may, depending on the facts, lead to changes in the processes that led to your Grandfather's position. If they are in multiple bits, it may be a more complex complaint, but should be resolvable by speaking to someone in the trust. Hopefully, that will lead to better outcomes for future patients. Fingers crossed that's what you were after?

I'd be wary of anyone suggesting talking to No Win types at this stage, and I say that as the son of a father who was misdiagnosed initially (turns out the spread made it a time issue, rather than an outcome one, and he had the chance to have a face to face with the guy who got it wrong, which was worth more than cash to him, and thus to me).

[LukeR94]

Thanks for the reply, If we could stop other people going through what my grandad and the rest of my family has that would be great.

Thanks again for the reply.

[john banks]

[quote]they then found out he has a bowel blockage and this should have been found out earlier (by one of the two doctors) and he should have been referred to be checked out
[/quote]

Easy to say in retrospect with the benefit of investigations that have been requested because of the duration of the problem and that previous treatment hasn't worked. Some of the doctors in secondary care that make these claims haven't worked in primary care and are not used to seeing problems in their early stages, but see them after they have been filtered by GPs. You would need the hospital doctors to be able to make these claims under cross examination. If you have a case, the robustness of their claims will be demonstrable, and it would be demonstrable that most other reasonable GPs would have done differently. That a duty of care is present is clear, that harm has arisen is clear, perhaps whether harm has arisen as a result of the GP's decisions is not. From the information supplied, I cannot say that I would have done differently, but this sort of development, and family being angry about it is a common misunderstanding of the unpredictability of complications, ability to see into the future and displaced emotions due to the disaster of a situation of any serious or terminal diagnosis.

There is a difference between negligence and a series of unfortunate events that are not reasonably forseeable. Perhaps my post may make you more angry, or perhaps you may consider there is always another side. This is not a clear open shut case of medical negligence, the emotional and other costs of fighting it are probably dubious. It is a difficult time for you. You have a priority now to look after your family and your proposal may be misinformed and counterproductive to that.

[LukeR94]

Thanks for your reply, it is very insightful, I will get advice from a solictor, as I myself am not too sure I have only given a brief version of events from what I can remember, some of it may be incorrect so my Grandmother remebers more and will have more of an idea about what went on.

But thanks again for your reply

[numtumfutunch]

LukeR94 said:

If we could stop other people going through what my grandad and the rest of my family has that would be great.

Im sorry to hear about your grandfather

If you wish to initiate disciplinary proceedings against the medical team involved start with the hospital patient liaison department and escalate to the GMC as appropriate

I dont see what a lawyer will do to stop this happening again, their expertise would be in the pursuit of a financial claim for you instead

Best wishes

[The_Doc]

You should start here: http://www.leedsth.nhs.uk/patients-visitors/patien... with the PALS Office

and/or a letter to the Chief Exec.

It will be dealt with in a very robust and transparent way, independent of the team involved.

The Leeds trust is a £1 billion/year company. They deal with complaints.....

[john banks]

It looks like the complaint is not against the hospital, but the GP, so the sources to complain to are not the above unless things are organised very differently to where I work as a GP.

It depends what you are looking for, as another poster said.

Edited by john banks on Saturday 18th October 19:19

[Cheib]

john banks said:

If you have a case, the robustness of their claims will be demonstrable, and it would be demonstrable that most other reasonable GPs would have done differently. That a duty of care is present is clear, that harm has arisen is clear, perhaps whether harm has arisen as a result of the GP's decisions is not.

This is the salient point.

I have been through this personally in a very similar situation and ultimately you have to be able to prove that the GP didn't do what most other GP's would do.

My father died of cancer twenty years ago, he was only diagnosed with cancer three weeks before he died. He'd been ill for a few months before that, his GP diagnosed he had stomach ulcers and had been treating him for it....having become exasperated with the treatment from his GP my father went to BUPA to have a "Well Man" screening done....this they did and diagnosed (five weeks before he died of cancer) that he had Diabetes.

The two Onclologists that treated my father in the last three weeks of his life both said we should take advice with regards to the care/diagnosis my father had in the previous few months . My sister and I thought long and hard about it and approached a charity who worked with solicitors who specialised in this. This wasn't about right a wrong (and wasn't about money) but it was about doing what my father would have done himself....anyway cut a long story short. We went to a specialist solicitor and spent a few thousand pounds getting proper legal advice including specialist medical opinion and litigation advice from a barrister.

The opinion came back very much as above, the mistakes the GP made and also the Doctor who performed the screening for BUPA were deemed to be those that could have been made by another GP so there was not a case worth pursuing.

[john banks]

Now, because of defensiveness, and criticism when a patient is referred "late" and it is considered a "mistake" after the event, I'm doing lots of "suspected cancer" referrals under a 2 week wait rule. The expected cancer rate is about 10% of those referrals. You can be criticised for being above or below this rate. It does make it very difficult and costly to deal with the serial attenders who always have something wrong, but never a new diagnosis, because they too can get cancer. The difficulty is making a judgement, in advance of the facts, when gathering the facts causes harm in itself, in a compensation culture. On the other hand, being a patient with cancer, after months of to and fro and vague symptoms is awful.