A Scots health board has been ordered to apologise to a liver cancer patient after they were wrongly told they only had ‘months to live’.
NHS Tayside has also been heavily criticised for several delays in the person’s diagnosis and treatment, which have been deemed ‘well out with normal guidelines’.
The Scottish Public Services Ombudsman found that medics failed to refer the results of a scan to a specialist for consideration until the patient chased it up.
They also discovered that a request to carry out a biopsy for the patient, known referred to as C, was not marked as ‘urgent’ causing further delay.
The patient complained to the health watchdog and said they were eventually referred to a liver surgeon, who was subsequently able to operate successfully.
In a written decision, the SPSO said: “We found that there had been unreasonable delays in carrying out C's tests.
“In particular, a failure to appropriately refer on the results of a scan, resulting in C having to chase this up and request a referral through their GP, and, a failure to mark the request to carry out a biopsy as urgent, resulting in a further delay.
“These failures contributed to a delay in providing both diagnosis and treatment for C which was well out with normal guidelines for cancer treatment.
“In addition, the fact that C was required to seek a referral from their GP to further consider the results of their scan was considered to be evidence that their care had been unreasonably self-driven.
“We also found that an unreasonable prognosis had been given to C, as it was clear that the consultant in question was not best placed to provide a prognosis and further consultations were required before an accurate prognosis could be given.
“We therefore upheld these aspects of C's complaint.”
NHS Tayside must now apologise for unreasonably delayed investigations into the patient’s liver lesion, for not referring their MRI results to a specialist team and for providing an unreasonable prognosis.
An NHS Tayside spokesperson said, “We are sorry that treatment and care in this case fell below the standard we would expect.
“We have apologised to the patient and a plan is in place to action all of the recommendations.”
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