Advice on taking gp/hv to court

[Random92]

I'm new here, so not sure if I'm in the right spot.

Sorry in advance for the long post.

I'm looking for advice in trying to take my son's health visitor and GP to court for malpractice/negligence.

So to start, my partner took my son to the gp to the doctors for his 12 week injections today (which were late as they forgot to update our address after we moved, yes we informed them of the change)

While there, my partner informed them of a mark on his check that looks very much like a spot. We felt the need to mention this as he has a large strawberry birthmark on his head which started of similar to this (just to note, we had previously asked to see a specialist regarding this as we are very concerned as it looks almost ready to pop some days!)

After my partner pointed this out, as they hadn't noticed. They called in the health visitor and the gp who claimed it was a bruise. (What idiot confuses a fatty lump for a bruise and somehow is medically qualified?) As a result they got social services involved, and would not let my partner leave the doctors or the police would be called. (Just to note, preparations were only made to be out of the house for an hour, so no spare clothes, no extra bottles, no extras of anything.)

So roll on to 4 hours later, partner still held at the doctors, the social worker turns up as she has to drive my partner to the hospital for the little one to be examined. Where the specialist took one look at the baby and said it was a medical issue (fatty necrosis I believe?) not a bruise or anything inflicted by outside actions.

Now, this paediatrician noticed this was not a bruise within seconds, surely any half qualified health visitor or gp should've spotted that before treating us as if we were criminals. Now even though we have been cleared as its nothing we could of caused, the social worker still wants to visit our 4yo daughter tomorrow for whatever stupid reason which to be quite honest I think is not necessary as the gp and health visitor were wrong.

As any parent can imagine, the whole situation has been incredibly stressful, especially to my partner who they kept locked up all day and she gets very emotional and loves our little ones more than anything.
I feel we were treated as guilty until proven innocent and this should've of never been necessary if any half competent medical professional had checked the spot on our sons face in the first place. In total they kept our boy out of the house for 8 hours. We were lucky to have family that could collect our daughter from school.

Any advice on how to take this further would be greatly appreciated, as this is a permanent mark on our children's names, even though we did absolutely nothing wrong.

This has shattered any trust we have in our Heath care system, and has made me fearful of taking my own children to the doctors. We pointed out the mark! It would've went unnoticed otherwise!
I consider this a complete failure on the nhs and their procedures.

Signed, an upset father with a devastated partner.

Short version: health visitor called social services due to a medical issue, not an injury that anyone with eyes could see. Permanent mark on children's record.

blackcat86, I wasn't the one to bring up baby p, someone else did. I was literally trying to clarify that this is nothing like the failings there. I think you may of gotten the wrong end of the stick on that one.

I'm a peadiatric nurse. I think if the GP genuinely thought it was a bruise/ injury then he took the correct action. Unfortunately NAI is very common and I've seen children later found to have horrific injuries, where the child presented with something very minor/ unrelated. Ok the GP got it wrong in your case. But for the sake of other children, they should continue to be cautious.

It's also normal procedure to check the other children.

There have been no accusations though. An accusation would be 'you have hit your child and bruised them', not 'there is a mark that could be a bruise and therefore we need to investigate further according to our safeguarding procedures'.

Op bruises can have hard knots in the centre, or be lumpy. As I said, you aren't a medical professional and therefore don't have all the information needed to make a judgement on whether it was a bruise or not. Unless the GP could say with absolute 100% confidence that it was not a bruise then they did the right thing, and suing them because they, as a general practitioner, were unable to make that call and instead referred to a paediatrician is unreasonable.

Social services isn't going to have a report saying 'RandomParents may have hurt the baby'. They aren't out to get you, that's not their job. If anything it will be a report that says something along the lines of 'baby referred due to suspected bruising to the face. Specialist diagnosis was fat necrosis with no bruising evident. Follow up visit to 4 y/o showed no cause for concern.' Why is that a problem if it's a factual representation of the situation? Saying it's 'devastating' is overreacting. It absolves you of guilt, it doesn’t accuse you.

I completely appreciate it was stressful and scary for you and your family. But you aren't thinking completely rationally at all. You're wanting to take health professionals to court over misdiagnosing a possible bruise. That's not rational. You're treating a referral they had to make as a personal attack and accusation. That's not what it was. If the system worked in the way you want, it would be a system which would leave doctors being unwilling to make referrals if they aren't sure of a diagnosis because they're scared of the backlash if they're wrong. That will only ever end badly.

You had a bad experience. No one is disputing that at all. But it's done now and you need to move on. Make the relevant complaints to the surgery about the issues if you want them to be addressed, but court and reports to MPs and governing bodies is way over the top.

This would go nowhere near a court.

Also the GP was following safeguarding proceedure. I understand you're really angry but you're failing to see the otherside of this. You say they wouldnt let you leave after they'd called social services, THAT IS in the childs best interests considering they were sure of the mark. If there was any abuse going on at home it'd be negligent to allow the child home with the adult. They werent sure in your case so they acted according to policy and assumed the worst, therefore saving the child.

Stop being so degrogatory to medical staff, it does you no favours calling your GP stupid.

*unsure of the mark

Also your medical record will never be 'wiped clean'. Thats illegal. It'll go down as the GP Surgery making a mistake.

I started off reading this and feeling sympathetic towards you, but the more I read from you OP, the less I support you.

There is no negligence here, regardless of your opinion. There has been no actual harm. The GP escalated their concerns. Yes, it was done clumsily. As stated, it’s your responsibility to get your kids vaccinated. So you phone up and make the appointment on correct dates, not hanging round waiting for letters.

CAG12, I don't want my medical record wiped clean. I want the information that social services hold on us removed as it is irrelevant.

We'll the system is clearly pretty flawed as physically they can't stop you from leaving the surgery. So anyone that was really I'm the wrong could just get up and go, yes the police would be involved after that, but then it would be too late if it was a real risk!

So you can't tell me that isn't a fatal flaw which relies on people being good enough to stay in the first place?

I have already swapped everyone out of the GP but I'm still not going to use the GP due to fear alone after this.

It would be a cause for concern if you now choose not to take your child to the GP in the future.

I understand it was a very stressful day but surely it's better that they are over cautious. He got seen by a specialist on the same day which is bloody good service. The sad thing is that there are children out there being hurt by their parents and with the high profile cases where abuse has been missed by the professionals they are just trying to make sure.

You can’t remove anything from a record, the whole point of them is to record everything. There’s no way to remove anything anyway. They can add a note to say it was resolved.

JoanieCash, our appointments have never been to the exact day, so why would we immediately be concerned? When we were concerned it had been a little bit too long we did phone them. How that makes us bad in any way is beyond me. We do get our kids vaccinated at every opportunity, I'm in full support of vaccinations.

@Random92
You’re so angry that it’s clouding your common sense.
Complain to the surgery if you wish but then you need to let it go.
The doctor & HV were only doing their job in trying (albeit wrongly) to protect your child. When you’re thinking more rationally you might be thankful for their insistence.
Maybe one day you might be thankful for social services.
Good luck to you & your family.

Bloody hell. Are you always this angry and over dramatic?

You’ve had a shock, you’ve felt humiliated, we get it. But these people were erring on the side of your baby’s safety. That is more important.

Also: fat necrosis can be caused by trauma.

You need to complain to the practice manager in the first instance.

I've no idea why a solicitor has advised you have a case, but you really don't.

In order to establish negligence you need to show 4 things: there was a duty of care; this duty was breached; actual harm occurred; the harm would not have occurred if not for the actions of the professional.

The only criteria you meet is the first one. It would be more negligent potentially if the GP hadnt referred.

Your child is fine, so negligence is not an issue.

I can assure you that this sounds like standard practice but the PM can arrange a meeting/debrief with the doctor if you want to discuss it further.

I always wonder, when people ask this on here, whether they have any clue as to the amount of money it would cost them to do something like this, even if it were reasonable. Do they have tens of thousands sitting aside to take it to court? As a family we have to use solicitors a fair bit for the family business and civil cases are hugely expensive. No win no fee is RARELY that, particularly in these sorts of cases. We’ve used enough, believe me.

That said OP I think whats happened to you is utterly devastating. I would be complaining to the highest authority about the GP and would of course move Surgeries

My D.C. had a strawberry mark and it was well documented by the HV when she took over from the community midwife specifically because they are easy to mistake for bruises, so I’m not really surprised this happened but it’s still very shocking for you

I don't want to be too outing but will be as detailed as I can. At a month old my child developed an actual bruise on her face and one on the palm of her hand. My mother instincts kicked in. I took her to drs and they seemed not concerned. This carried on. New bruises daily.
A few months on DD stopped breathing. I had to resuscitate her. She thankfully started breathing again.
Ambulance came and took her to hospital. On looking at her records DP and I were under investigation. We were having to arrange family to look after her for when she was discharged from hospital. A week we were accused of battering our beautiful baby.

I had just resuscitated my daughter, I was a crying mess. The dr saw me as unstable. I thought my daughter was dying!!

One dr came on shift, looked at her records and asked for a test to be done...something they hadn't even bothered doing. In there eyes we were guilty! We wasn't allowed to have any alone time with my child. I was breast feeding and had to feed with no privacy, on a ward with other children and their families. I was 21 years old FTM.

It turned out that my DD had something wrong with her. An avenue they apparently should have looked into immediately.

The social workers were gobsmacked that they let it go as far as they did with no medical investigation.

I was livid, yet relieved.
I wanted to pursue my anger until I heard in the news that a child had died from awful abuse, a story line that upset England so much you will have seen the pictures and will probably remember the childs name.

Posted too soon.

I was glad in the end that they investigated me and my child. It meant that hopefully less children will become victims to vile human beings!

I think you’ve got the wrong end of the stick. Fat necrosis is often the result of trauma, so it raises the possibility of non-accidental injury rather than excludes it.

I think the most productive way forward for you is to focus your energy on trying to get the slate wiped clean. That is the most important outcome.

Why do want to take them to court (aside for the fact they did nothing clinically wrong ) ?Money I presume ,to drain more money from the NHS

I understand your frustration, I had a HV report my family as a concern to the SS citing that my DS (who hadn’t long since come home from NICU) had clear breathing difficulties and she stated to them that she had informed me of this and to take him to GP or A&E that day...

The SS turned up (understandably) when I hadn’t taken him as they had been told I had been urgently advised.

Thank god the HV had left notes of what she had actually said to me, she had mentioned to take DS to the GP that week (not that day) for a dietary assessment as he was drinking a lot of special formula for low birthweight babies but not piling on the weight she had expected he would, no mention of his breathing not to me and not in his red book notes. If I didn’t have those I don’t know what would have happened.

I was so angry because this HV knew our DD, twin sister to DS was in NICU still because she had a collapsed lung and severe breathing difficulties, I knew what I was bloody looking for as a result when it came to this

I complained and got a new HV, SS stayed on a bit for assistance more than anything as we were going through a lot at the time.

The HV that had completely misreported our circumstances has since ceased working as a HV.

It’s so infuriating being on the receiving end of this kind of incident, but other than making the relevant complaints through the surgery I don’t know how far you’d get pursuing this. I’m just happy to read that, whilst shaken (and understandably so) your family came through with no further incident.

We weren’t so lucky, we nearly lost the right to bring our DD home because of the domino effect caused by that HV... but we got through and DD came home two months later

Really an afternoon of uncomfortablness is worth it to know that this practice does not discriminate and if they suspect abuse they will report no matter who it is.

How lucky is your DC to be loved and protected by caring parents, and that the Drs were mistaken, however a child that maybe wasn’t so cared for has a greater chance of being picked up.

Perhaps they have had a few cases of abuse lately and something about the mark triggered a response.

I am sorry you were embarrassed. I have been in a similar position when my DC had burns that the hospital thought were suspicious- they were a complete accident, but we were still questioned, more than once about it. I was just grateful as it meant they had no problems questioning anyone and hopefully truly abused children would be detected

"Did they have our child's beat interests at heard when they wouldn't let my partner leave to get him a bottle?"

"I don't want any records saying in so many words "this person may of harmed his child"

Both things you've said in previous posts, hence why ive commented on a) the practice not letting you leave and b) you wanting to wipe your medical records of the incident.

There is no case to answer here.