Summary
Ms C complained to us that the practice had failed to provide appropriate care and treatment to her when she reported symptoms of altered bowel habit. When she was referred to hospital cancer specialists after a period of some months it was established that she had bowel cancer. Ms C belived that the practice should have referred her to the hospital cancer specialists earlier and that the diagnosis would have been reached sooner.
We took independent advice from a GP adviser and concluded that there were no delays in the practice making a referral for a specialist hospital opinion. Ms C had attended the practice on a number of occasions with a number of physical and psychological symptoms and initially it was felt that a referral to a respiratory clinician was appropriate. However, when Ms C continued to report different symptoms it was then appropriate for a referral to be made to the hospital cancer specialists. We found this to be reasonable and we did not uphold the complaint.
Related reading
View Decision Report 201705356 as a PDF (11.06 KB) Updated: December 2, 2018