Decision Report 201305761

Summary

Mrs C complained that when she had a colonoscopy (examination of the bowel, using a camera on a flexible tube) at Monklands Hospital some years ago, it was not carried out properly. She explained that she was in severe pain throughout the procedure, but the doctor disregarded her requests to stop. She had, more recently, experienced problems with her bowel, which she thought were a result of the procedure.

Mrs C said that there was a nurse present during the procedure, whom she felt would be able to recall what happened. We asked the board to obtain a statement from the nurse, but neither he nor the doctor who carried it out could recall specific details. We also took independent advice on this complaint from one of our medical advisers, who is a hospital consultant. He said it was understandable that staff could not recall the specific procedure, given the time that had passed since the procedure. He said, however, that the records showed no evidence of Mrs C having asked for the procedure to be stopped, and she did not appear to have raised any concerns immediately afterwards, when her pain was noted to have settled.

As we found no evidence that the procedure was not properly carried out and the adviser thought it unlikely that Mrs C's more recent bowel problems were connected to the earlier procedure, we did not uphold the complaint.