What to do about a Failure to Diagnose Cancer

Is it possible to claim compensation for failure to diagnose cancer? My father had visited his GP a number of times over the course of a year, but it took the doctor over 12 months to diagnose cancer.

A cancer diagnosis is something that everyone dreads hearing, yet failure to diagnose cancer is far more serious and can be catastrophic for the victim. When cancer is diagnosed early and treatment is started promptly, many patients can make a full recovery.

As with any illness diagnosed by a doctor, if symptoms persist and therapies fail, it should call for the doctor to re-evaluate their initial diagnosis and arrange for further tests to be completed to determine the true nature of the problem. If these tests had not been provided, specialists not consulted, or the wrong tests arranged which resulted in the failure to diagnose cancer, then this could be deemed to be medical negligence, and it will be possible to claim compensation.

As with any medical negligence compensation claims, a failure to diagnose cancer may not result in compensation being awarded if it can be proven that under the same circumstances, any competent doctor would have failed to make a cancer diagnosis. The test used to determine whether or not there is a case for failure to diagnose cancer compensation is to put the case to a panel of expert doctors to see if they would recognise the symptoms of cancer, and if they would have done anything differently which would have caused the cancer to be diagnosed at an earlier stage. They will also consider whether an earlier diagnosis would have made any difference to the outcome.

In some circumstances the eligibility to claim may depend on the actions of the patient. If the symptoms had not been fully explained to a doctor, or if the patient had not revisited a doctor when symptoms of an illness had failed to improve, the defence could well argue that the patient had been negligent with their duty of care to themselves.

In order to determine whether your father is eligible to make a failure to diagnose cancer compensation claim it is vital that he speaks to a specialist medical negligence solicitor for advice. Your father's medical records will be checked and the case will be thoroughly investigated. Your solicitor will then be able to advise you of eligibility to claim compensation and the chances of a successful failure to diagnose cancer compensation claim at an earlier stage.