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Case ref:201507859
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Date:July 2016
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Body:Fife NHS Board
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Sector:Health
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Outcome:Not upheld, recommendations
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Subject:clinical treatment / diagnosis
Summary
Ms C raised her concern that there was an unreasonable delay by clinicians in diagnosing that she was suffering from ovarian cancer.
During our investigation, we took independent advice from a consultant gynaecologist. The advice we received and accepted was that while Ms C had been treated for possible precancer of the cervix from 2005 until 2011 this had no relation to her development of ovarian cancer and that there is no screening test for ovarian cancer. Even had Ms C's ovarian cancer been diagnosed earlier, in her circumstances, the treatment would have been the same - a total hysterectomy. We found no evidence that there had been an unreasonable delay by the clinicians in diagnosing that Ms C was suffering from ovarian cancer. However, we were concerned that while there had been discussions about Ms C's situation during the period she was being treated for possible precancer of the cervix, she was not made aware of these discussions, so we made a recommendation to the board about this.
Recommendations
We recommended that the board:
- report back on the action taken as a result of this case to improve communication with patients.