hospital saying I should have informed them

[Mharhi]

about my previous medical history on admission to A and E? I just got back a complaint response and apparently it may have made a difference if I 'had alerted staff to my previous colonoscopy' when I came into casualty. However I was in a lot of pain, bleeding and taking tramadol, just felt at the time up to answering what they asked me. And what they asked was very specific "have you a history of inflammatory bowel disease?" then came back and said "sorry they forgot to ask had I ever had bowel cancer or family history of it?"

Now they are saying I didn't make them aware of a benign tumour which was in the colonoscopy report...argh..

Shouldn't they have a checklist or something to ask people? I already feel so bad I didn't alert them, I didn't know the report was important or was aware the lesion mentioned was a tumour...

I also would have thought the person checking me in should have checked out on the computer my past records?

No, they just record the responses given.

A doctor is unlikely to go through every possible senerio. The op say what happened is very rare and was a long time after the colonoscopy. OP past medical problems are as much your responsibility to advise at is their to find out. Imo, I know it must have been scary, surely if they went I depth enough to mention your dhs problems they went deep enough for someone to realise you needed to mention it. I also agree with pp that says it strange that you remember such detail but was coherent enough to say something. Anyway I hope your better soon.

If you do want to take this forward you will need to get an independent medical opinion. That should also help you identify which bits of your care were OK, and which to focus on.

Oh, OK. Well there you go. Another thing that a random non-NHS person wouldn't know .

I think tbh that missing something life-threatening and discharging someone from A&E and then in response to their (undertstandable) complaint laying the blame at their door for not telling the hospital about treatment the hospital already gave that person is a bit rich really. But then, hospitals don't like admitting fault in case people sue do they? I would hope at the very least they use this as a teaching case with some of their more junior doctors on the importance of taking a thorough history and talking in straightforward language to disorientated and distressed patients.

Hearing the full story, I'm changing my mind to YWNBentirelyU... you must have been terrified and disorientated as well as in such pain, and it can be difficult to provide clear and coherent detail in such circumstances. The doctor should have asked you about your medical history in such a way as to make you realise the relevance of colonoscopy results.

Also, if she'd died (apologies OP, horrid horrid thought), wouldn't there have to be some sort of investigation of why she was sent away after presenting at hospital? Wouldn't something like this count as a 'near miss' that should be learned from?

Mharhi sympathies. I have very little recall of ds1's birth by crash section after 30 bastard hard hours of labour and shit loads of drugs but I remember clear as day after 8.5 years the absolute shouty ranty bollocking I got from the midwife in the room for failing to inform them I had gestational diabetes. Something that I did not know, and in fact hadn't been informed I'd even been tested for.

Yours sounds much much worse, and in the situation you described I'm certain I wouldn't necessarily have been able to recall all salient facts.

You're assuming they're trying to avoid responsibility completely.

OP has only mentioned that part of their response to her complaint was that it would have helped to have known about a bowel tumour when she attended with abdominal pain and pr bleeding.

That's quite hard to argue against?

I distinctly remember certain bits, i wonder if it's like that sometimes when something scary has just happened. It was my first time ever rushed into the hospital. When I look through the notes it reminds me sort of. Sort of "have you IBD" No but he has! The them writing that down carefully! Then them coming back in a flap to ask very seriously if I had had cancer or history of it...them going away and Dh and I looking at each other totally terrified...they think it's cancer. yes I did remember that.

Even when you think you distinctly remember something that doesnt mean it is always going to be an accurate recall. The memory is an odd thing!

Cock how can you not know you have been tested? Its a geuine question. When they did mine I have to fast, have a blood test, drink some energy drink, wait at the hospital for 2 hours and have another blood test. Are you sure she had the right notes? I can't imagine that passing you by unnoticed. Either way she was horrid. That's awful.

Well, except that if the hospital performed the investigation then the hospital did know this... just that there systems are too archaic for individual doctors to access that info and they expected the patient to somehow know this.

I'm not assuming they're trying to avoid all responsibility. I'm trying to be realistic about what the average person attending A&E in distress can be expected to recall and understand -something I would have thought the hospital would have a really big interest in, given that presumably they would like to avoid instances like these in the future?

I do not know what 'pr' means in your post. Are you medical?

Yes broxeur but I didn't know I had the tumour! I thought the colonoscopy was fine- 'nothing to worry about"!

their systems

per rectum

I shagged a few doctors. Is it transmissable?

I think the main problem is that it they'd informed me about it properly in the first place then of course I'd have told them. Aargh!

DPrince when I had ds2 almost 6 years later, that's when I realised she was utterly wrong. I was tested the second time you see, exactly as you describe. Nothing like that the first time at all. Apparently it was in my notes that my urine was regularly + to +++ for glucose though, and nothing had ever been said to me about it.

And it was supposed to be a bit of a reassuring anecdote for Mharhi, not all 'me, me, me'

Mharhi - did you let them know at the initial consultation you didn't know what the results meant? If you nodded and accept the information, how were they to know that you didn't fully understand?

It all sounds a bunfight TBH. I do agree that your recall is remarkable for someone who was out of it on tramadol and that you really should have told them about the biopsy. If doctors had to read through all the hospital notes over years back there are some patients who woudl take half the shift. I've seen some notes bigger than the bible.

I am glad that you avoided the stoma though, and I thoroughly understand why you want to get to the bottom of what happened.

Tbh, I think both parts (your original diagnosis and the history taken in A&E) point towards the importance of excellent communications skills amongst medical staff dealing with patients.

You only have to watch One born every minute, that BBC3 thing on junior doctors or any other documentary about the NHS to see how easily doctors in particular use both complicated language and medical jargon, and that when patients don't understand they frequently don't ask (or they think they've understood but haven't). It is a really skill to be able to explain complicated things in a way the average patient can understand, and do bear in mind that the average patient is not the average person. Patients are frequently sick, scared, tired, in pain, disorientated, not to mention possibly elderly or vulnerable in some other way.

Yes thanks CockoDoodle it was helpful.

Sorry didn't want to hijack, I just couldn't believe, given the situation how awful she was. That's why I thought she must have had the wrong notes. I can't imagine anyone forgetting the boring morning. :)

Hi 1950sHousewife, when they told me it was after a long discussion about Coeliacs disease which they thought I might have and some villi that were flattened and why that could be, some more tests that could be done about that.

There was then a picture of a kind of blob thing they had found they said to me was a 'polypoid lesion' i was told 'we don't think it's anything to worry about, isn't causing any problems and we're not going to do anything about it' so i said ok and didn't think about it anymore.

With hindsight I should have asked some more but it was so reassuring, also I was pregnant and was worried about how I'd had the colonoscopy when preg...just shows is best to put your own health first sometimes.

I can totally understand. Being told nothing is wrong would have mentally made you put the lid on it.
I am really glad that you have survived all this though and hope you get some answers as to where things went horribly pear shaped.