Life expectancy sent by email - relative

[BillStickersIsInnocent]

Hi, I hope someone can help.

I’m really shocked by this communication but I could well be missing something. A relative received an email after a CT scan saying he had inoperable lung cancer and giving him 2 years to live. 2 weeks later another email saying his scan had been sent to another clinician who has concluded he has 8 months to live.
This feels so cruel, I would have thought these conversations happen face to face or at least over the phone where you can ask questions.
Does anyone else have any experience of this type of communication?

You are correct - I am sorry.

Kindly OP you have not done ALL that you can right now.

Many posters have given great advice given their personal and even professional experience, and how it is more than extremely likely all lies, especially given his previous history of manipulation and criminal behaviour. Lots of great suggestions on how to go forward.

The most important one of all mentioned by several PP’s is report this as elder financial abuse. This is a crime. There is going to be a financial aspect to this in in no time. Wether experimental treatment, bucket list fund for improving quality of life and travel, perhaps coercing them into release equity from their home or get loans in their name for him, or just manipulating the parents out of smaller but still significant amounts over time. Or maybe a go fund me to scan the public, still a crime to be reported in that case.

Perhaps he sees these parents will soon need to use any assets and finances for their own care, and then leaving him nothing in inheritance?

You can report him anonymously or ask to keep your name out of it, so that both the parents and him don’t know it’s you. Also as you are still holding on to the irrational fear that this is true, then the best case is they investigate and find it to be legitimate. More likely it is not, and then you at least have experienced professionals who will do all the hard work for you, and most importantly protect these poor people from being ripped off.

Local authorities have social workers who deal specifically with cases of elder and vulnerable adult abuse of any type. Call their local council and ask for the adult safeguarding co-ordinator. You can also speak to the police about the situation.

Here is a link that may be helpful…

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/social-care-and-support-guide/help-from-social-services-and-charities/abuse-and-neglect-vulnerable-adults/

In that case, the email is definitely not genuine. I've just checked the register for the name of an oncologist I know personally and it gives their details and says "medical oncologist".
If this doctor isn't on the register they're either not licensed to practise in the UK, or they don't exist. And I agree with PPs that "top oncologist" is just not the language that doctors use.
This must be awful for you. I guess the truth will out eventually if it's a pack of lies.

@Cfcbaz some hospitals use nhs.net as their main email domain and others use a Trust-specific nhs.uk domain. But as you say, no-one would have emailed that from either domain anyway.

Yes spot on

@BensonStabler 👏

Thank you @BensonStabler I will do that.

Consultants absolutely have an online presence even when they aren't trying.

I'm very unimportant and definitely not a 'top doctor' but the first hits on my name are me and what I do for a living thankfully as it used to be a porn star

I honestly think you should tell them that you looked that doctor up to see his credentials, and he doesnt exist.

Yep, I've been retired for a few years (used to be a doctor in England), but if you google my name (not a common one), it still crops up with reference to my old job and even shows some photos! And I was definitely not a "top oncologist"!

(amazingly, though my 1st name/surname combo is fairly unusual, there appear to be 4 other doctors across the world with the same name, and only one other person on the google search who isn't a doctor!)

When emails are sent via nhs.net to the patient they are encrypted. The patient has to register in order to open and read/ reply to the email.
This is why it’s not really used since most older people would struggle or be suspicious of this.
My GP surgery uses something similar but through SMS which is much more secure. It also has a time limit on it.
It is possible that the first email was just a summary of a face to face appointment he attended dorr diagnosis. The second email is a total red flag, no oncologist would refer to a colleague as a “top oncologist”. They would simply refer to them as a colleague and by name. As for a definitive time line absolutely no way, no one is that good.

You can’t make a complaint to the NHS about somebody else. They have to have granted their permission for you to do so unless you are their legal guardian or have power of attorney for care. He is highly unlikely to agree to OP doing this.

I've read all your posts and most of the thread.

For my background, I'm a doctor, fully trained cardiothoracic surgeon, left the NHS just over a decade ago, still a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, now work in the pharma industry in R&D. I used to cut out lung cancers as my day job.

This entire story sounds fabricated. These are details which would never in a million years be communicated to a patient in this manner, and even if they were, would not be communicated via email, and most certainly not to a generic email address outside the nhs.net domain. You also cannot possibly confirm a lung cancer diagnosis conclusively then start going into details of prognosis and life expectancy discussions without a tissue diagnosis, for which you would either have a biopsy or, depending on the precise location and accesibility of the lesion, an operation. Until then, nobody in their right mind would say anything about life expectancy because you have no definitive proof. No doctor, absolutely no doctor, would make such statements as you have been told that your friend/relative has been sent without a definitive tissue diagnosis +/- further staging scans. It is simply impossible.

Last but not least, neither I, nor anybody I know would ever refer to another colleague as a "top oncologist" in any written communication.

I'd be happy to try to decipher/evaluate for authenticity further or more specific information such as names, terms, language used, and what the expected pathways should be vs any claims being made. Feel free to PM me if you would like my help.

I believe your understandably deep emotional connection to those involved is blinding you. You therefore cannot see what the rest of us here see most clearly.

Sometimes when you are in the thick of things you cannot see them for what they are. And so you are hanging on to any tiny glimmer of hope that this is true and can’t possibly be lies.

Nobody wants to accuse a genuine cancer patient of lying about their condition and impending demise. That’s understandable, and if this were someone who is usually of good character then you would likely have more people here backing that theory up, although still extremely unlikely email and wording, and it just not the way things are done. So then the most likely theory and advice here would have been that this poor person is being scammed.

What you can’t see and don’t want to believe is those two things are the least likely.

I know this is a tough and upsetting situation. keep reading all the advice here from real patients and professionals, and try to take everything else said to you by him from here on in with a pinch of salt. Hold back a bit of suspicion, not for your sake but for those poor vulnerable parents. I wish you the best of luck going forward.

If it was me, I would also do as others have said in killing him/them with kindness doing everything you can to get professionals and nurses, social workers etc involved in every way possible, and offering to take him to appointments. Watch for signs of back pedalling and excuse after excuse. I would convince the Dad to send what email info he has to you too.

Please don’t just fall for this BS. Nothing enrages me more than these scum bags who lie about having serious and terminal illnesses for scamming money or attention. Not only is it abhorrent and an insult to those truly suffering. It spoils things for the truly genuine families out there who are trying to raise funds. Eventually no one will donate because of these vile creatures ruining the publics trust. It has a real life effect on so many people. I say this as someone who is terminal with a serious progressive neurological disease, and who has lost countless family to cancer.

Unfortunately I think it will lead to another email, him being offered experimental treatment abroad, possibly in the USA. Most likely sold as so experimental that's there's no funding for accommodation,travel costs etc which will have to be self funded. That's what I would be expecting in this situation. There could be another angle to this but that's the most obvious.

Sorry but there are a lot of things wrong with this. No Dr would refer to anyone as a "top oncologist" in an email or give a life expectancy that specific. It's either a scam or your relative is lying.

I strongly suspect he is lying

Thank you, that’s very kind.

I know you’re right. Thank you for taking the time to post this.

Diagnoses are not sent via email. Sometimes doctor might accidentally publish the results to the patient in the online portal befire taking to them. But no doctor would email anything like this.

So the child is lying and dad ia believing? Or is the child being scammed? Is there are a financial demand or something? I'm assuming that the dad is the one being scammed. You should flat out say that you think he's being scammed cause doctors don't do emails like that. Then once he's asked for money he might have some voice in his head that makes him think.

I was told I had breast cancer over the phone. This was last year. Saw the consultant two weeks later to discuss op

I think you have two problems here.

One is the fact that you know this is likely to lead to some kind of scam or deceit that the parents need to be protected from, and how best to do that, particularly if they don't accept they need protection.

But before you can really address that imo the more pressing problem is that you're very reluctant to accept it yourself. You're obviously an intelligent woman, and the consensus on this thread is unusually clear, together with some very knowledgeable expert opinion.

I think this individual is someone important to you despite everything that's happened in the past, and understandably it's hard to believe they would stoop so low. Presumably this is also happening hot on the heels of believing they were dying imminently and now having to reconsider that bombshell too.

I think you need to take some time to let this excess of news - good, bad and ugly - just subside for a few days, let it sink in, and fgs be a bit kinder to yourself about your reaction to it all. You seem to be judging yourself for your wicked thoughts, on the basis that suspecting him of lying would be a terrible thing to do if actually he's telling the truth - except that he's not telling the truth, and given the painfully obvious red flags, you're not a terrible person to be thinking along these lines. On the contrary, your love and concern for his (your?) parents shines through everything you've written, and says much more about the kind of person you are.

Once the facts of the situation have had time to percolate, I think you'll feel a good deal clearer about what to do next, whether that means tough love with the parents, or some more indirect way of protecting them and/or investigating him. Right now, I think you're in shock.

One other thing that occurred to me is to wonder if you're not the only one with doubts. I find it curious that the father would go to the trouble of writing the emails out in their entirety if he accepts them at face value. Is it possible he too is wrestling with the possibility that there's something not quite right about what you're being told? When you've all taken some time to reflect, I wonder if you may find you're pushing on a partly open door after all.

I work in diagnostic imaging, just want to second what @UnicornsHaveDadsToo Says about diagnosing from a scan.

I know that Covid has changed alot of working practices in NHS but I'd be surprised if emailing life limiting information is permitted. Regards tracing the people on the email, call the hospital where they allegedly work, if you actually trace the named person, you could ask if this email is something that could happen. Don't ask them to discuss your relative as they won't be able to.

I have to support the other posters, it seems like he's faking it. You may suffer from the shooting of the messenger though, even though you try to help.

Oh bless, yes I do know elderly people who copy everything in soft copy out.

Just wanted to say even if it's from an NHS domain, that doesn't mean anything. Surprised I'm the first one to mention this – didn't we all use to prank our friends with those fake sender / spoofing email generators online? So for example, if I wanted to send someone an email from [email protected] or [email protected] (their actual email addresses), I could easily do so.

Also, even if there was a huge cock up, eg forgot to encrypt confidential info, I think the info would have been in an attached, filled out form as you mentioned, rather than in the body of the email

I'm havijg oncology investigations. Many NHS Trust's clearly state they will only provide the results of scans face to face. It is likely you can find the trusts policy and leaflets on the internet.

The only thing I've had via email is appointment letters for urgent scans (no time for post). I have a very nice nurse co-ordinator who ensures I'm kept up to date and provides support.

When I've asked for copies of blood tests from the GP, these are sent via a secure system that I log into. They will not email them.

I'd tell him you are reporting this to the Trust's Chief Exec, the complaints team and the CQC for investigation as it is appalling that he's been communicated with in this way and it must be address to ensure others aren't treated in the same. And I'd do it as well. They wouldn't be able to tell you anything but it will raise eyebrows and start a documented trail for the police if he does start asking for money. If he has a probation officer I'd be raising your concerns confidentially with them. You could also contact the Local Authority and state you have a safeguarding concern in relation to his parents and that you believe they are at risk of financial abuse.

I'd gently keep enquiring and commenting in a non-confrontational way so he knows that his lie isn't being swallowed and you are on to him without giving him a reason to block contact with his parents so you are there for them when needed. Going in aggressive is likely to create a divide and put the parents more at risk. It will allow you to hear what's going on and you can then escalate to the police if he's conning money out of them. ask him if he had contrast with his CT Scan and vaguely ask whether he experienced the funny feeling you've heard about if he did. You feel like you've wet yourself, it's weird!

If he had been diagnosed then he'd have had more investigations. They'd have identified if it was small cell or non-small cell and whether it had spread. To suggest he's had that diagnosis with just a couple of tests seems ridiculous. For me the tests and scans feel endless at times. I see my GP or a hospital clinic at least once a week at the moment. My immune system is knackered and I have new things crop up constantly that have to be checked out. I don't know if this is how it is for everyone though.

My chain smoking 75 year old grandmother was diagnosed with lung cancer, advised that without chemo she could expect to live 6 to 8 weeks. She was offered chemo even with such a poor prognosis. I can't imagine a 40 year old would be told that they had 8 months and not be offered chemo? I don't think the Macmillan nurse's did any of the initial explaining of diagnosis type stuff. They were there to provide advice, support and palliative care.