To think this is serious malpractice!

[itshouldhave]

I have just been told my ferritin level is 16 and been prescribed iron tablets after complaining about an all over itching which has started about 2 months ago.
For the last year i have been complaining about heart palpitations and out of breathlessness i’ve been to the hospital out of hours and they referred to gp who sent for an ecg which apparently came back clear.
I have yearly (or whenever i remember) bloods to check my hbc1 levels for diabetes so after this latest blood for the itchiness out of curiosity i went back and checked my 2024 bloods for hbc1 which included iron and ferritin also where my ferritin level was even lower at 15 but it was sent back as ‘normal’
so later on when i went back for the heart palpitations and exhaustion why did they never pick up that low ferritin could be causing it as the blood results were already there??
i know some gps don’t class low ferritin an issue but when someone complains about heart issues, low iron should have been checked???
i want to report this gp but need to get a better picture if this is as bad as i think it is or there is more to their judgement.

for men maybe, not for women.

But this is from the Iron deficiency anaemia guideline- at no point has the OP said that she’s anaemic, just that she has low ferritin levels. The guideline says if concerns re IDA, arrange a Full Blood Count and only then if Haemoglobin low arrange iron studies. So if OP has a normal FBC then not sure this guideline is helpful.
Yes her ferritin levels may fall further leading to iron deficiency anaemia, but the fact that a year later they’ve stayed the same makes this seem unlikely. She has iron depletion not iron deficiency anaemia.
Iron is poorly tolerated orally and not without side effects.

Your ferritin’s a bit low, not disastrously low. There are plenty of us rattling about with much lower iron stores than you and no symptoms…. And there’s plenty of other things besides hypoferritinaemia that can cause your symptoms. The only way you’ll know if your symptoms are caused by iron deficiency is to take the tablets and see if things get better. Being a bit low on iron isn’t going to have caused organ damage. This may be a good time to think about why you might be a bit deficient too - if it’s not something obvious like being a veggie/heavy menstrual blood letting it may be worth exploring with the GP if it needs any more investigation.