Cancer screening negligence blunder & missing test results
November 21, 2018
Reports show over 45,000 letters containing cervical cancer test information due to go out to UK women weren’t sent. The error (occurring between January-June 2018) forces NHS bosses to reconsider the way in which screening programmes are born out. Cancer screening negligence clearly isn’t receiving its due diligence in concern by the people responsible.
The blunder has put thousands of women at risk as around 4,500 of the letters contained test results. Unfortunately, the reports show that between 150 – 200 letters actually list abnormal results leaving these patients at very high risk of delayed treatment.
Cancer screening negligence in screening system?
The NHS screening system services, however, were not the fault of the NHS alone. But by proxy, their outsourcing to a private firm, Capita along with many other NHS services which MPs have previously branded as a “shambles.” Capita blames the costly mistake on a “system error” but didn’t elaborate on it any further.
Surprisingly the British Medical Association (BMA) had already warned about the serious risks of Capita’s plans to overhaul the service. In fact, they wrote to the NHS England chief executive, citing key back-office failures that have already been made.
The Importance of Cervical Screenings
The NHS has run a screening programme for women over the age of 25 since the 1980s. Moreover, health services encourage all women over this age to have a screening.
- For women between 25-49, they suggest it occur every three years.
- With women between 50 and 64, they suggest every 5 years.
Despite what some think, screening isn’t a test for cancer. Rather, it’s just to check for abnormal changes that can occur. According to the NHS statistics, around 1 in 20 women show some degree of abnormal changes in the cells in the cervix. However, most of these changes do not lead to cervical cancer.
In the UK alone, around 3,000 cases of cervical cancer receive an official diagnosis each year. Although this seems high, the number of cases fell around 7% in the year after the introduction of the programme.
A Clear Case of Medical Cancer Screening Negligence
The recent errors in outsourcing the administration of cervical screenings to a private company are significant. Even health secretary Jeremy Hunt is acknowledging the damage: it’s highly likely these women had a positive cervical diagnosis and didn’t even know it.
Accordingly, their treatment might have taken place far earlier had their letters containing results been sent. This constitutes a clear breach of care and duty.
Complete with the pain and suffering of a patient’s unawareness to a significant alteration to their life expectancy and well-being. Moreover, it would fall under the category of “Lost Medical and Missing Test Results.”
This is an area of medical negligence we are all too familiar with at The Medical Negligence Experts. Accordingly, we speak to thousands of people every year who suffer due to poor healthcare treatment. On this occasion, it is clear that compensation will most likely be available to women who develop cervical cancer. Especially if there’s a delay in diagnosis due to the lack of information they receive.
Speak to The Medical Negligence Experts
We work with a team of highly capable legal advisors and the best medical negligence solicitors in the country available. Moreover, we can help you or a family member investigate your case and help you claim compensation. If you experience any pain, suffering or financial loss as a result, we want your help.
To speak with one of our team fill in our contact form. Alternatively, call our team directly on 0808 250 2349. For early diagnosis issues, improper medical care, or other warning signs doctors miss, we’re here to help.
How can we help?
For cancer screening negligence claims, the team of solicitors at The Medical Negligence Experts have extensive experience. In short, our collection of firms represent clients seeking compensation for injury caused by cancer screening negligence. For NHS breast cancer screening, inability to detect cancer early stage, skin cancer negligence, misdiagnosis of cancer and more, we help with each type of cancer issues.
It is our job, above all, to negotiate and fight on your behalf for the best possible financial outcome. And we do that, moreover, by building robust medical negligence cases that win.
We understand the devastating impact implant negligence can have on our client’s lives. Moreover, we’ll do all we can to help you minimise the ill-effects of your injury and live to your full potential.
We support our clients by:
- Investigating their situation thoroughly to ascertain whether their claim has a good chance of success. The onus is on the claimant to prove negligent care causes their injury, and it can be painful if it fails.
- Collecting and organising evidence to present a solid case to the responsible care provider that supports your claim for compensation, which can also include putting you in contact with the right independent medical experts for their assessment.
- Negotiating an acceptable amount of compensation based on your circumstances, and what has claimants with similar injuries to yours have received in the past.
- Representing you and supporting you should your claim go to court either due to the responsible party disagreeing with the claim, or refusing to pay fair compensation.
How our team builds a robust medical negligence case
We work with the UK’s top lawyers, but we’re also people with families of our own. Above all, we understand that making a medical negligence claim can be stressful for those unfamiliar with the process. It can be drawn out and complicated, but we will keep you updated – without using excessive legal or medical jargon – so you know what is going on.
Contact The Medical Negligence Experts today, and ask how we can help you.
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