We took independent advice from a consultant clinical oncologist, who said that there had been an unreasonable delay in diagnosing and treating Mrs C's breast cancer. We also found that it was not possible to know what the outcome would have been had Mrs C been diagnosed with earlier with breast cancer.
The board accepted that they had failed to meet the 12-week guarantee time for referrals and outlined the action they had taken to minimise delays to appointments and subsequent treatment, including managing out-patient referrals. We upheld Mrs C's complaint.
Recommendations
We recommended that the board: provide an update on the review being carried out of the management of out-patient referrals.
Related reading
View Decision Report 201602419 as a PDF (11.95 KB) Updated: March 13, 2018