Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

General health

Mumsnet doesn't verify the qualifications of users. If you have medical concerns, please consult a healthcare professional.

Flip

1 2

Original poster

Went to A&E and was misdiagnosed , would you complain?

26 replies

madmarchhare · 01/08/2006 16:19

Short version is that I went to A&E with dizziness, unable to walk unaided, stomach pain, temp and feeling worse than I have ever felt, and granted, a tad of anxiety.

Was told I was having a panic attack and asked if I wanted to see mental health worker.

Next day GP says I have severe gastroenteritis.

I know they have a difficult job etc etc and it wasnt life threatening, but am very miffed at the way I was treated.

OP posts:

Joolstoo · 01/08/2006 16:43

join the club - A&E told my mother she had badly bruised her leg - in fact she had a fractured femur and shattered knee! dd was told she hadn't broken her wrist - she had

we complained, we got apologies

if you feel badly enough you should complain - otherwise they can't put things right.

marthamoo · 01/08/2006 16:58

My Mum was told by her GP that she had a touch of indigestion - she was actually having a heart attack.

littlelamb · 01/08/2006 17:05

Yep, definately complain. I had this on two consectuive days, when I was told by the practuice nurse to go home and take paracetamol. I was hospitalised for three days with such severe tonsillitus they were concerned that the infection had spread to my brain, which completely beggars belief. Put it in writing, and keep a copy yourself. Even if no action is taken, it will at least be on record that you are unhappy and hopefully whoever misdiagnosed you will get a good talking to. Hope you feel better, it is horrible when you feel fobbed off by the very people meant to help x

peanutbutter · 01/08/2006 18:18

madmarchhare - you say you are miffed at the way you were treated, why is that? I assume you were triaged first then seen by a duty A&E doctor. Most of the time when the symptoms point to a particular diagnosis(ie in this case a panic attack) then it generally is the correct diagnosis. O course it can be wrong, as happened with you, but the doctors are pretty much doing the best they can and base their diagnoses on the evidence they have. If that was the case with you, then they certainly won't "get a good talking to".

Do you think the doctor didn't ask you the right questions or something?

misdee · 01/08/2006 18:19

dh called an ambulance out and was told he was having an asthma attack. called the gp out, saidthe same, took him to a+e where he was dx as in being in heart failure.

suejonez · 01/08/2006 18:29

I don;t see how a tempeature can be a panic attack (or am I wrong?)

I went to A&E 10 years ago with excruciating chest/stomach pains and was given two zantac and told to go away. Was so embarrassed about going to A&E with indigestion that I ignored the most excruciating pain from about 2 months.

Was OK once they'd removed the bloody enormous gall stone I had blocking the duct though.

(partly my fault for not kicking up more of a fuss)

bubblepop · 01/08/2006 19:38

definately complain

suejonez · 01/08/2006 21:13

and on reflection, I'm really ashamed to have posted that after Misdees - its hardly comparable is it - oops [sheepish emoticon]

mixedemotions123 · 02/08/2006 06:52

My mum was told that she had an ear infection and infected diaorreah. Sent home after IV fluids. Died 2 days later from heart faliure as she was so dehydrated, her heart could not stand the amount of fluid being put in in order for her not to die from dehydration.

Furball · 02/08/2006 07:14

I was told I had a virus - I actually had a ruptured brain anyeursm (brain haermorrage). Luckily they did diagnose properley after a brain scan a few hours later.

Original poster

madmarchhare · 02/08/2006 11:04

Oh goodness, after all these much more serious issues here I feel a bit of a fraud now .

peanut - Yes, I suppose I am thinking that they didnt check me out/question me thoroughly enough. My GP was much was much more attentive, asking much more and actually examined me.

I know they are very busy but I do think that in this case (and as it seems many others!) that they werent actually doing their best. Attitude of doctor was very off as well. I left feeling like I had wasted their time.

OP posts:

SpaceCadet · 02/08/2006 11:11

never been misdiagnosed in hospital but have been by gp, was told i had depression when i was suffering severe dizziness, was later finally told i have menieres desease and uncompensated labs..after id had a violent allergic reaction to ads threy put me on.
duty doctor at christmas refused to visit me at home despite pnuemonia symptoms, when he did visit he didnt even listen to my chest, then said i had a virus!!, when i was finally admitted to hospital, was told i was 24 hours from death.

Gobbledigook · 02/08/2006 11:15

Oh yes, definitely complain.

Ds was sent home from GP several times earlier this year with 'just a virus' which turned out to be pneumonia for which he was in hospital on oxygen for 4 days.

Just a month or so later, we were sent away from A&E twice when he hurt his arm - we were told it was fine but it did turn out to be fractured.

When I was pg with ds1 I was in a car accident adn hurt my wrist - taken to A&E in ambulance but in A&E they said my wrist was fine because I could move it, no x-ray done. THe next day I went back to my local A&E in agony = they x-rayed and it was quite badly broken.

I have NOOOOOOO faith!

Gobbledigook · 02/08/2006 11:16

Oh, and my boyfriend went to the GP repeatedly over about 6 months with feeling unwell (can't remember exact symptoms) - he had blood tests etc but apparently he had 'just a virus' - that turned out to be Hodgkins lymphoma.

GPs scare me - even though I know they do a good job in general - I never feel very reassured.

misdee · 02/08/2006 11:22

i dont trust my local hospital at all. i had dd3 at a different hospuitalfor this reason. when dd3 blood tests came back to say her jaundice levels were too too high, and she had a blood count of 20, they repeated the blood work to double check. fortuntly it was just a bad sample. i think ifit was the local hospital, then they may have ade more cock-ups.

definatly complain. i am still differing about complaining about peters treatment at the local hospital in dec 04. they kept saying he had chest infections and pheumonia, but i knew he was showing signs of progessing heart failure, but they wouldnt listen. the next time the symptons appeared i got him taken to the different hospital, who then got him transferred to harefield for transplant assessment and was listed in march 05. by which point he was really really ill. i honestly belive he should've been assessed for transplant in the december, and maybe the delay has scuppered his chances now.

Original poster

madmarchhare · 02/08/2006 11:22

Well this is it GDG, neither do I but I didnt know whether or not I was just off on one again .

OP posts:

lazycow · 02/08/2006 11:50

I haven't read all this thread but I will give you two examples of our familily's experience of A&E.

1 - My sister went in after falling over in the street (She was rescued by some lovely passing fire men who put her in a taxi to the hospital as she was having trouble putting weight on her leg)

A&E did no xray - told her it was sprained and sent her home with an elastic bandage on and no crutch. As sis got outside she went to get in a cab home, and fell on her leg again as she was finding it difficult to walk with no stick and a very painful leg- This time she was in agony. Back to A&E - again no xray - just more reassurances and sent home again.

Two days later she rang me saying her leg was really hurting and that she still couldn't stand on it at all. I went over and her leg looked really bad so we went back to A&E- This time they did the xray and she had a ankle broken in several places which needed surgery and 10 pins to fix. She was in hospital for 3 weeks and in plaster for 3 months. She still has a limp now - 8 years later.

2 My mother (in her 70's) went into the same A&E a few years later with a broken wrist - They plastered it and sent her home telling her it was a small break and to come back in 10days for the plaster to be removed.

When she went back - it came out that they had used the wrong type of plaster and she now needed an operation to fix the break and the plaster had made things worse. She spent 4 days in hospital recovering from operation she needed to fix the damage.

We considered complaining/suing in both instances and were advised by legal specialists in this area that we had chance in either case.

Good luck with the complaint but I doubt it will achieve much.

Tutter · 02/08/2006 11:56

depends on what you want to achieve

i was sent home by my local hospital after pain and bleeding in early pg. 10 days later i was readmitted after a scan showed me as queried ectopic pg. a furtehr 36 hours later i was finally taken to theatre (shunted down the list behind D&Cs because i wasn't in extreme pain any more) and had to have a fallopian tube removed sas it had ruptured god knows when.

they then dropped the single set of sterilised keyhole equipment on the floor, so had to open me up to finish the job.

decided against action as i was traumatised enough by the ep and partial loss of fertility - didn't want to put myself through anything else.

Original poster

madmarchhare · 02/08/2006 11:57

I dont particularly want to 'acheive' anything, other than maybe keeps them on their toes I suppose. What if said doctor does it all the time? I dont know, but I think I will write.

OP posts:

Gobbledigook · 02/08/2006 12:01

Even if it 'achieves' nothing for you personally, I think you are absolutely right to write and bring to someone's attention that you received 'sub standard' care. If we don't do this - how will they know?

Jools wrote a letter after my wrist break adn after my Nan's leg being broken.

Have to admit I didn't write re ds but his fracture was only a slight one and he didn't have any ongonig problems so while very annoying and he was pain an extra couple of days it wasn't something to get too worked up about.

peanutbutter · 02/08/2006 12:16

okay, so if you think his attitude was a bit off as you put it and that he didn't question you fully then those are perfectly reasonable grounds to make a complaint, esp in view of what happened next. In terms of what you can expect back: you can expect a response from the Chief Exec within 20 working days (not all trusts achieve this though) and to be kept informed in the event of any delays. The complaints dept will then investigate on behalf of the ChExec and if considered appropriate you will receive a statement of regret (ie we're sorry) and again if considered appropriate then an assurance that mechanisms will be put in place to ensure the same does not happen again.
You could also contact the PALS team at the hospital - this is an informal way of raising a complaint/concern. HTH

HuwEdwards · 02/08/2006 12:20

I would complain - if I was treated badly, if I felt I wasn't being listened to, if I felt I hadn't had enough time with the Dr, if I felt I hadn't had the docs full attention, if the misdiagnosis caused further complications.

I wouldn't complain at a misdiagnosis per se.

Original poster

madmarchhare · 02/08/2006 16:33

Thanks pb, I think I will do it informally. I assume that the people who would need to know (ie, those who knew of any existing issues)would get to know this way.

OP posts:

peanutbutter · 02/08/2006 18:10

Well, it depends on what action you agree with PALS mmh. You need to be really clear about what exactly your concern is (similarly if you make a complaint, put the actual points of complaint down as bullet points within your letter). You might decide with PALS for example that they will advise the A&E service manager about what happened and ask for some informal feedback on your behalf. This would probably mean the service manager asking an A&E consultant to look through your notes and then speak with the doctor concerned. The service mgr would then feedback to PALS who would in turn get back to you (or the service manager might ask to feed back to you directly).

On top of this, PALS issue 1/4ly reports to the Clinical Governance team & manager of each department with a brief outline of every concern that they get relating to that dept (anonymised). Your concern would be one of these and would be discussed at the 1/4ly clinical gov team meeting. These also go to the trust board, if you're interested

If you're not happy with the outcome from PALS you are still entitled to complain formally in writing to the trust.

Sorry if i've bored you into a coma . This is closely related to my line of work if you hadn't guessed!

Original poster

madmarchhare · 03/08/2006 15:10

No , it's all very interesting, honestly.

OP posts:

Flip

1 2