Cancer Compensation Claims
Many types of cancer can be treated
successfully if treatment is given in the early stages. Doing
so is easier when cancer’s diagnosed at an early stage as
treatment is often simpler and more likely to be effective. So
finding cancer early can make a real difference. Unfortunately,
sometimes a correct diagnosis is not made, and sometimes cancers
are missed altogether. Clinical Negligence solicitors report
that, misdiagnosis of cancer is one of the most common cases
they have to deal with. If you or someone you know has ever been
the victim of this type of medical negligence, you will know how
distressing and traumatic it can be.
Some of the cases our solicitors have
experience with include:
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Failure to identify an obvious lump
during breast examination
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Failure to arrange appropriate
investigations, such as biopsies, x-rays, CT or MRI scans
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Failure to properly evaluate or
follow up test results
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Failure to recognise common symptoms
of the particular form of cancer
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Failure to diagnosis a tumour as
malignant
Would correct
diagnosis have made a difference?
Even when there is evidence of a failure
or delay in diagnosis we must prove that it has made a
difference to the treatment and/or outcome. It is important to
get advice from a professional clinical negligence solicitor.
Late diagnosis is seen as a major reason
why the UK has poorer survival rates than some other countries
in Europe.
Patients are dying of cancer because GPs
are failing to identify their symptoms, the government's top
cancer expert has warned. Professor Mike Richards said botched
diagnoses were now 'a significant concern'
In an interview with The Observer,
Richards, national cancer director at the Department of Health,
warned about the consequences of these mistakes. 'Ultimately it
can mean that the cancer has progressed to a stage where it
can't be cured,'. Failed diagnoses also meant that, when cancers
were eventually spotted, particularly aggressive treatments,
such as chemotherapy or surgery, had to be used. 'That could be
a mastectomy rather than perhaps a breast conserving operation,'
he said
'There are 250,000 new patients with
cancer every year,' said Richards. 'It's probably only a small
proportion who experiences a missed or delayed diagnosis. It's a
small minority of patients overall. But it's not a negligible
figure. We want to reduce this to the smallest possible number.'
Cancer in children and breast cancer
were especially hard to diagnose, he said. 'There will be a
significant number of women with breast cancer where this may
happen, especially where cancer is uncommon, for example women
under 50 and even under 40. This can happen among that group. It
can happen with any cancer.'
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More than 1,900 patients - 55 a
month - suffered a missed or late diagnosis, though
officials admitted the problem was probably much greater
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Patients waited for periods between
a day and 23 months to have their condition confirmed
because of diagnostic errors, often at their GP's surgery
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Breast, bowel and lung cancer were
the likeliest to involve a botched diagnoses
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Blunders in hospitals added to
delays in cancers being identified. These include X-rays,
biopsies or blood tests misfiled or misread.
'This is an important issue because in
some cases things are going wrong,' said Ben Thomas of the
Patient Safety Agency. 'Nobody wants this to happen. Nobody
wants to miss a diagnosis or have a late diagnosis. But it does
happen. This could happen to anyone. Unfortunately people suffer
and people die. We think that practitioner delay, where someone
turns up at the GP with symptoms but there's a delay in the GP
referring the patient to a specialist, is fairly common.'
Richards said some GPs felt they could
not refer patients for tests as often as they would like in case
hospitals became overloaded. 'Many patients are referred the
first time they go to their GP. But some will go three, four, or
even more times,' he said.
Richards's comments come as cancer
charities warn that some GPs are wrongly telling sufferers they
have other, less serious conditions, such as irritable bowel
syndrome, haemorrhoids or gastroenteritis, and send them away
with tablets. Similarly some patients in their twenties,
thirties and forties are being misadvised by their GP that they
are too young to have breast or bowel cancer, which mainly
affects the over-50s, despite early signs of the disease.
Cancer experts agree it can be hard for
GPs to identify correctly the signs of the disease, partly
because the symptoms of certain cancers are also those
associated with many other illnesses. A typical GP with a list
of 1,800 patients will only see eight or nine new cancer
patients every year, and there are about 200 different types of
cancer.
'Cancer is difficult to identify and GPs
sometimes get it wrong,' said Dr Steve Field, a Birmingham GP
and the chairman of the Royal College of General Practitioners.
Many of the signs of cancer, such as tiredness, weight loss and
rectal bleeding, are also associated with many other conditions,
making diagnosis difficult, Field said.
GPs sometimes did not glean enough
information about a patient's health from their case history or
physical examination to indicate if it is cancer, and some feel
they need to see a patient several times before forming a
judgment on what was wrong with them, he said.
“Sourced from The
Guardian and The Observer”
Over the years Medical-Accidents has
seen many medical negligence claims involving cancer
misdiagnosis. All our solicitors are dedicated to representing
victims and their families in order to obtain the financial
security they deserve.
Contact us today for a friendly, ‘no
obligation’ chat about your case.
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