08
Dec 2014
NHS hospitals missing cancer diagnoses and patients being sent home too early
According to the Parliamentary Health Service Ombudsman Dame Julie Mellor, patients are being sent home too early from hospital, and in many cases before it is safe for them to leave, putting them at serious risk and adding a “massive cost” to the NHS for emergency readmissions.
She added serious failings such as missed cancer diagnoses and early discharges were having a “devastating impact” on patients and their families.
Dame Julie went on to say that while there were individual cases and conclusions could not be drawn about the whole of the NHS, decisions to wrongly discharge patients may in some cases have been impacted by “considering cost implications”.
“We are increasingly concerned about patients being discharged unsafely from hospital and we know that unplanned admissions and readmissions are a massive cost to the NHS.”
Jamie Reed, Labour’s shadow Health Minister, said “This catalogue of poor care shows an NHS heading in the wrong direction. Hospitals are full to bursting – struggling to admit or discharge patients – and these reports make clear there isn’t enough staff to cope.”
A Department of Health spokesperson said “The NHS is the most transparent it has ever been – and we’re focusing on confronting poor care like never before. That’s why in our response to the Francis Report on Mid Staff we made it clear that we want the Parliamentary Health Service Ombudsman to investigate more cases so lessons can be learnt and patient care improves.”
Chadwick Lawrence’s specialist team of clinical negligence lawyers have years of experience in Medical negligence compensation claims, and have obtained substantial compensation for our clients. Not only do we represent clients in Yorkshire, but because of our reputation we also represent clients nationally.
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Posted by Tony May, Partner/head of Clinical Negligence Department, Chadwick Lawrence LLP (tonymay@chadlaw.co.uk ), Medical negligence lawyers and clinical negligence solicitors in Huddersfield, Leeds, Wakefield and Halifax, West Yorkshire.
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