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Case ref:201802288
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Date:October 2018
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Body:Greater Glasgow and Clyde NHS Board
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Sector:Health
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Outcome:Not upheld, no recommendations
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Subject:clinical treatment / diagnosis
Summary
Mrs C complained about the treatment which her late husband (Mr A) received during attendances at the out-of-hours service at the Vale of Leven Hospital. Mr A had attended on three occasions over a period of 15 months with chest pains and numbness, where staff repeatedly told him he had a trapped nerve and prescribed painkillers. Mr A subsequently died of a heart attack a month following the last hospital attendance. Mrs C felt that the board had not carried out sufficient examinations to have ruled out the possibility of Mr A having heart disease.
We took independent advice from a GP adviser. We found that the GPs who saw Mr A had carried out appropriate assessments and obtained a reasonable history based on his reported symptoms. It was reasonable that the GPs had each arrived at a working diagnosis of musculoskeletal symptoms as a result of a trapped nerve. There also was no clinical evidence that Mr A required to be referred to a hospital specialism, such as cardiology (the area of medicine which deals with the heart and circulatory system). We did not uphold the complaint.