Hospital Admits Liability For Giving Cancer Sufferers The All Clear

The North Cumbrian University Hospital’s Trust has said that it accepts responsibility for 3 breast cancer patients who were mistakenly told they were free from the disease.

Problems first emerged when a Quality Assurance team looked into the breast screening process in 2010. The victims of the negligence were found when 1,600 of the mammograms were reviewed in both the Whitehaven and Carlisle hospitals which the trust runs.

The inspection revealed that few women were being consulted for more tests and that 16 women had been told they did not have cancer during the period 2007 to 2010 when, in fact, they did.

The trust is taking responsibility for 3 of the cases at present and has said that it wants to work closely with legal teams a ‘satisfactory resolution’. These are women who the trust admits that the delay in care has caused problems in treatment and affected their prognosis. For others is accepts a certain amount of responsibility in that delays were made but that treatment and life expectancy has not been influenced. The remaining cases it says it accepts no responsibility for, according to medical director, Mike Walker.

Mr Walker said: “We have taken steps to ensure that a similar incident does not occur in the future and we apologise unreservedly for the shortcomings in their care. More investigations are underway into clinical negligence according to Mr Walker.”

Some of the other patients who the trust accepts no clinical negligence for still want to pursue compensation as they believe their lives have been affected negatively as a result.

Published 11th February 2015.