To consider reporting this doctor to the GMC?

[Rawrster]

Short version of the story. I have had anaphylaxis on and off for the last few years and have just been diagnosed with an extremely rare allergen.

Six months ago I collapsed and had to be intubated by the air ambulance. Spent four days unconscious in ITU on life support at a major hospital. A week after coming out of hospital I used an epi pen due to facial swelling and went to my local hospital where a doctor told me they had done allergy tests on me, all were negative and that they wouldn’t prescribe me an epi pen to take home.

Turns out no allergy tests had actually been done and that I do have a severe, all be it, very rare allergy.

As this is my local hospital and the one I’m most likely to be taken to for treatment I am wondering how best to proceed. I’m also pretty peed off a doctor could be so incompetent (I had actually reacted to a medicine in that hospital just the month before so it was well and truly documented on my notes).

Have you had any support from www.allergyuk.org OP?

This is all just speculation and no one but the hospital will know what happened. We don’t even know whether this was a consultant or a registrar

dishing No, I need to get in contact with them though I think because I think it would be good to talk to people who understand what it is like (I am very lucky that I’m now in a job that understand it and some of my friends have been amazing).

I left my epipen at my last job and they used it on someone else. I’m severely allergic to bee stings and ibrupofen and they still won’t give me a new pen. I’ve got a medibracelet and just pray if I get stung that someone thinks to look at it and tell 999 to bring adrenaline!

it’s the two days without epi pens

I’m a GP. There’s a nationwide shortage of epipens at the moment. A lot of my patients went for a lot longer than 2 days without in-date epipens during a particularly bad patch last year...

Oh and the one I left there I’d bloody bought online for £50 my self!!!

And yes, you would be unreasonable to complain to the GMC. This doesn’t even come near to the threshold needed for them to be interested.

First of all you need to question what exactly happened. You don’t seem to have the full facts which will make a complaint much harder to process.

Hi via

Yes I’m aware (my gp wrote to me just two weeks ago). Last month I had to have epi pens couriered between hospitals as I wasn’t allowed home without two (emerade So also dealing with the failed needle issue)...

Shit thedark that must be really scary. I don’t understand why a doctor won’t prescribe it when it can be so vital to life

Blimey. When I saw the allergy consultant with dd she said that bee and wasp stings are the ones that really worry her and she always prescribes for any hint of a swelling reaction. Thedark you really should push for them, since you have literally no control over being stung. We had to wait about 6 months for dds last round of epipens because of the shortage.

this is the route - start complaint with hospital there are time constraints - you cannot report directly to GMC however bad the mistake was. Request your full records from hospital you may have to pay a small amount but you are entitled to them. You must read through the records yourself - Check online for your local area you may find some charities who may support you. when you do first letter set questions/complaints by bullet point & ask a direct question or concern at the end of each point.
You need to do this letter both clearly & logically as you can - do not get emotional - nb again complaints have time constraints
You may have to face the consultant & an executive at a meeting - get yourself organised & ask for a recording of the interview to be done & do one yourself (argos is your friend they do little recorders some of which can be downloaded onto your computer)
If you decide to sue you will have to go through this process to begin with.

Be prepared for delayed answers from them & answer which will give misleading/inaccurate answers. Be prepared to answer them being logical & picking apart their answers. Go ahead good luck.

You need to complain to the hospital first.

It is more likely that there is an error in your notes or a breakdown in communication then that the doctor told you a bare faced lie. It seems that your allergy testing was done in a different hospital anyway so the local hospital wouldn't have had access to the results.

Scary as hell that there's such a shortage of the epi pens.

Rawrster - my DD has significant allergies so I have some experience. A couple of questions:

• is your allergen one that would be picked up by standard blood test?
• how was the allergy testing done that revealed the allergen
• do you think you now know ALL your allergens (my DD grew out of some and developed others)
• are you on any other meds e.g. antihistamines?

Some suggestions:

• get a medical alert bracelet
• establish what exactly went on in local hospital
• see if there is a way for allergen information to be shared

My DS would spend days in hospital doing lengthy food challenges to establish allergens. It is a complicated and confusing area of medical science but we have been lucky with incredible paediatric consultant who was a huge support. Biggest challenge is getting people to accept it is a thing

The Epi-pens shortage seems to be easing. I've been waiting for things to improve before even putting a prescription request in for them (carrying around 6 months out of date pens) and I had the prescription filled within 2 days last week! There's a system in place whereby my pharmacy aren't allowed to keep them in stock but have to request each new prescription separately. This is very positive compared to trying to get hold of Epi-pens for DD last year when I was told not a chance of getting hold of the Epi-pen brand and it was even hairy and a massive faff getting hold of an Emerade.

Why on earth would you go to the GMC without even exhausting the hospital's complaints procedure? Baffling

"Would they really not be interested in a doctor lying to a patient about tests and sending them home without potentially life-saving medication"

That could all be a mistake by someone else in the chain of events, e.g. in hospital notes

Not all A&E departments will issue the green FP10 prescriptions for you to go and collect yourself from a pharmacy, and epipens are definitely not kept as dispensing stock in A&E either.

There are multiple potential systemic reasons why this happened, which is exactly why the complaint needs to go to the hospital and not to the GMC. You won’t get anywhere with the GMC until there are some solid facts that actually point to a failing of the doctor and not the system.

Scary as hell that there's such a shortage of the epi pens.

Not as scary as those who lost their lives due to the shortage.

Ds has 4 out of date Epi pens, his are still fine, as they have 3-4 months past expiry and the liquid is still clear.

I will have to get him new ones when he starts back school, however I am lucky as ds consultant will prescribe us 4 at a time, due to ds medical history.

EpiPen is a brand, however all other manufacturers are in the same position as there is a key component that manufacturers are finding hard to locate in making the adrenaline auto injector.

However it only hit media attending last year/this year as it wasn’t global.

In 16/17 we also had difficulty in renewing his medicines however it would take a week at most, not the current months.

Pharmaceuticals have now placed the lens on the central alert register in which only 2 pens can be prescribed at once.

Definitely PALS first. If a mistake was made, you can’t possibly know who, why or how it was made and whether it was a system failing or a human error. You need the hospital to look into this first. Also are you sure on the blood tests? it seems very unlikely that a patient who was intubated and in ITU only had a FBC. ITU patients have a battery of bloods daily. Also most allergy testing isn’t even done by bloods, most is done by skin prick or patch testing. There is a test you can do for anaphylaxis but it isn’t specific to a particular allergen so doesn’t yield that much information.

I am guessing the doctor went off the eosinophil levels (found in a full blood count)- it is often raised in people with allergies/atopy but is not specific for any particular allergen. More accurate for acute anaphylaxis is mast cell tryptase ( within hours if onset of symptoms). May be useful to find out what tests were ordered and to make a complaint to the hospital to clarify what happened- GMC unlikely to investigate this in the first instance.

To be honest even if the notes didn’t flag an allergy, when the op presented at hospital after using an epi pen and having just been discharged from ITU with anaphylaxis the doctor was pretty negligent for not giving her a replacement epi pen.

If the Dr made an error through negligence or by lying to you, you may have a reason to consider reporting to the GMC.

But first you need to understand what happened.
What lessons could be learned to protect you and other patients?
Is anyone actually at fault?
Is it the hospital processes or individual clinicians?

It may be that he didn’t read your notes.
I had a young doctor in A&E tell me to take Ibuprofen. I ended up in Resus the last time. I have found a distinct lack of knowledge at my local hospital and was eventually referred and it was brilliant everyone understood what I was talking about. I have a very rare one too. The consultant had never have any one react on the skin prick before. I also have an immune system that seems to go up and down so sometimes I am in A&E and sometimes I can control it. Another one allergic to bee🐝 and wasps. I have an emergency pack now at home.

You have had lots of advice. Have you talked it through with you GP? Mine is brilliant and not shy at phoning and querying another Doctor.

berry they can share notes if you have given permission.

OP I hope you get it sorted out. It is a very scary thing to happen. A lot of people don’t really understand. I hope you feel more at ease soon.

@Rawrster - definitely the right people to speak to.