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Compensation for misdiagnosis

Many claims for medical negligence compensation start not from some adverse event, like surgical error, but with a non-event - a doctor missing the signs of injury or disease.

A patient complains to the GP that she has a breast lump, or a persistent cough, or a change in bowel habit. The patient is reassured, offered some medication for the symptoms, and sent away. The patient comes back with the same symptoms and told not to worry. Months later the patient sees a locum, or goes to hospital with some other problem, and turns out that he or she has had, for example :

Treatment is hastily started, there is an urgent surgical referral.

In cases like these there is often little real dispute that a doctor has missed some obvious sign, failed to make an urgent referral, or written the patient off as anxious and a nuisance.

The real issue for the injury compensation claim is what would have happened if the patient had been referred for treatment straight away. A sample of the tumour may be analysed to see how fast it is growing, and so what size it would have been at an earlier date. Or an analysis is made of the stage it has reached, with an assessment of the outcomes of treatment had action been taken sooner.

In English law the crucial test is whether earlier treatment had a better than 50% chance of succeeding. This rule often leads to harsh results, as doctors would start treatment for cancer with a far lower percentage success rate than this. So the patient may prove that his GP should have referred him months earlier, and that the hospital would have operated, but even then with only a 30% chance of success. The courts would not award compensation as it would be held there was no evidence that on balance of probability the operation would have led to a better outcome. But these are the unlucky few.

Sadly, every year many patients do miss out on necessary treatment and, with the help of specialist medical negligence solicitors they and their families recover medical negligence compensation.

It isn't always the GP at fault. In one successful compensation claim the GP told the patient, who had coughed up some blood, that he feared he had lung cancer and was referring him urgently to hospital. The hospital carried out a few tests, and after many months discharged him without any diagnosis. The family complained about the GP: his bad news was unnecessary and ruined Christmas. But two years later his symptoms became unmistakable. He was sent back to hospital, where they confirmed he did have lung cancer, but it was too late, and though much was done to make him comfortable, he died.

His widow sought claim advice, expert witnesses confirmed that the right tests would have confirmed the GP's initial fears, and that surgery then would probably have saved his life, and she eventually received substantial compensation for her husband's early death.

Please visit our section on information and advice for more details on making a personal injury compensation claim.

For further information please go to one of our pages below:

• Bowel cancer misdiagnosis claims
• Breast cancer misdiagnosis claims
• Cancer misdiagnosis claim solicitor
• Misdiagnosis
• Misdiagnosis of cancer
• Misdiagnosis of swine flu

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