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.

Tbf @drdolots it would be the GPS insurance company who deal with it, not the NHs

Doctor, Health visitor and Social Services do their job.

OP: I’M GONNA SUE

They had a suspicion, they acted on it, they’ve kept records as their required to, by law. It will be recorded by all as an error, but it will stay.

Because sometimes, more stuff happens and when the baby is killed the FB generation and other media seethe at ‘negligence’.

This has caused nothing apart from some discomfort and possible embarrassment (although not sure how anyone would have known it was SS coming to see you - well, unless you told everyone via SM). What would you be suing for? What loss did you incur.

Why are you so worried about records being kept? You’ll never come across them again if everything is ok, so it’s meaningless.

Legal cases where you want to sue. Usually for a cash sum. Means you have to be out of pocket. It won’t Permanently be in your child’s records. It will come off in 5 years

First step is complaining to the practice. Then you could go to the medical ombudsman. However. I’m almost certain they will say they did their job

Although very distressing. I don’t think you have a case. You’re angry. But you’re angry with the wrong person. Yes the GP got it wrong. But they aren’t infallible.

Medical cases have to show usually that you’ve been misdiagnosed and it’s corrupted your health. So either not being diagnosed correctly and not being treated. Or being treated for the wrong thing.

However I do think you should complain to the drs.

Yes. It was a misdiagnosis.

However. You weren’t treated medically. That’s the difference.

By now not using the gp. That will spark social services.

It’s hard. Trust me. My friend had the most awful pregnancy. They missed what ended up w life threatening event. Both baby and mother nearly died. They left her unwell for 17 years. On deaths door. She took them to court and won.

Pressed too quickly

She won due to the fact that she had gotten worse in the years. If it had been 7-8 hours. There wouldn’t of been a case

I went to the solicitor with her. Someone stated above. You have to prove that you were somehow physically harmed by this. There’s a lot of steps

It cost my friends thousands. I mean thousands. The biggest case the nhs has ever laid out for. Is some little boy who is now severely disabled. Due to someone missing something.

This will keep happening. They are people. People aren’t infallible. They did their job.
They did t harm you or your family physically .

My daughter is older, but after a series of admissions to A&E following various injuries and falls (and me stupidly taking her to two different A&E departments at separate hospitals) she had a fainting fit and ended up with a cracked head. Off to casualty she went, but this time they picked up on her frequent visits, and SS wanted a word. After talking her her and her dad (I was at work) they were satisfied that dd was clumsy and that was it, goodbye, don't darken our door again. To be fair, the nursing and medical team gave my daughter some excellent advice and she's not visited in about a year now, thank God.

Everyone should look out for vulnerable people, child or adult. Better be safe, than sorry.

My gut is that you are a fairly unpleasant individual in real life.

Add that to a child with a facial mark that could be a bruise.

Yep, I’m totally with the GP

There's zero point suing. Honestly. In the UK, courts award damages based on actual damage - so if someone dies as a result of medical negligence, the court may estimate how much the loss of that person affects his family financially, and award damages based on this estimation. If a child was brain damaged as a result of medical misdiagnosis when being born, you might win massive damages to pay for alterations to your home or similar. What financial hit have you suffered? In the UK, courts don't tend to award damages for hurt feelings.

A serious misdiagnosis is one that results in death or disability. Not inconvenience and embarrassment due to a GP asking for a second opinion. And you seem very caught up in the fact that the GP wasn't sure if a lump was actually a bruise - many bruises, especially those to the head, result in bumps, and I'm sure that's what the GP meant.

CAG12, I just want to exercise my right to be forgotten under the data protection act. There's nothing more to that. I'm well within my rights to want that. I don't see why that should be of any concern to you?

Just had our visit off of the social worker, who even stated things were potentially handled the wrong way (I appreciate they have to be somewhat impartial.) But the procedures were wrong from the start.

And just so everyone is knows, there is no concern for the safety of our children at all, and it is being closed

I appreciate that all this is to protect children but it's escalated at the wrong point. Weather you disagree with me or not, no innocent person should be put in that position. Checks should be more subtle before social workers are involved. If there was serious risk to a child, they endangered said child more by stating my partner had to wait for social services, anyone in a bad frame of mind could of easily walked out of there long before any police involvement.

And I know this because my disabled mother died as a result of medical malpractice, and my father was awarded damages very carefully worked out on the basis of her disabled benefits and eventual pension. The hospital tried to argue that her disability would have resulted in her dying young anyway, so no need to consider her pension in the damages calculation. Luckily, the postmortem showed she was in otherwise good health with no reason to suppose she'd have died early. If my dad had died instead, my mum would have received a much bigger payout as he had a high salary.

StarlingsInSummer sorry to hear about that. I'm not even after any financial gain. I just want to ensure this doesn't happen again to someone else innocent.

As far as the finances go, I'm more than capable of covering any legal costs. As money is no object in this regard.

I don't think anyone will guarantee it won't happen again.

The consequences of getting it wrong in the other direction are potentially so severe that doctors will always err on the side of caution. An afternoon's inconvenience and a visit from a SW pale in comparison to the possible issues of letting a physically abused child go home unchecked.

It's not pleasant, but there's no way round it if we want to safeguard children effectively

Its not YOUR right to be forgotten, its on your childs medical record. Theres nothing wrong with wanting that, im just saying it wont happen because its a legal record. Why are you so defensive?

As for the more 'subtle checks' you asked for, what would you suggest? Social services sneaking outside your house in a bush? Social services combing through medical records to find out if anything seems amiss?

The truth is that presentations to medical services are often the first opportunity to catch NAI in babies, which is why medical services have such strict safeguarding protocols. I work in A+E, its more common than you think

But do you really have any idea how much this will cost you OP? Why are you contacting no win no fee places if money is no object?

How did they know you were innocent?

How can the checks be made more subtly?

So what you basically want is for the ENTIRE child safety and safeguarding system completely overhauled because you had a shit day?

Honestly you’re laughable. The system is there to protect babies and children from horrific experiences. So yeah sometimes innocent people get caught up in it. Doesn’t mean it isn’t working.

Just go be a parent and forget about it. Don’t make people’s lives utterly hideous because you hold a grudge.

Random92 you are fundamentally missing the point - in order for those unpleasant situations where there is abuse (and if you read the newspapers it definitely happens and is still missed) innocent people have to be flagged. Indeed as wriitng a notification has appeared about the sentencing in the death of Alfie Lamb

When DS broke his leg I was asked, DS was asked and then asked again how it occurred - to check out the story was true

You were in an out in less than a day that is good. Your child is now seeing sa specialist - that to is good. What do you actually want

OP -

AuchAyeTheNo, thanks for your helpful and well though out input.

Passthecherrycoke, I appreciate it can cost in the multiple thousands but I've got my own successful business so that isn't an issue.
I only went to no win no fee as a first contact because they won't touch you if they think there is no case (due to them loosing money) so that's the only reason I've gone there first.

Doctors should be more trained in identifying these marks so social services don't need to be involved so rapidly.

Quartz2208, what I wanted was for him to be seen by a paediatrician when we first showed concern. Not for such awful circumstances to result in him being seen to. That's surely not being unreasonable.

Doctors should be more trained in identifying these marks so social services don't need to be involved so rapidly.

But as people have already pointed out, fat necrosis, as your baby had, can be a sign of trauma. It wasn't in your case, but the medics were correct in flagging it. It won't always have an innocent explanation

Doctors should be more trained in identifying these marks so social services don't need to be involved so rapidly.

It is impossible for a doctor to indenting every type of mark on every patient of any age, race and medical history with 100% accuracy. Plus, as has already been pointed out to you, fat necrosis can be caused by blunt trauma, so even if the GP had identified as such it's still entirely possible that social services would have been involved because non-mobile babies should not have any symptoms of blunt trauma.

What type of training do you propose?

This has got to be a windup. No one is this stupid.

Random92 but as I said earlier your complaint is really something different isnt it that you were not seen by a specialist earlier

There are far more time sensitive things GPs need to be trained in - this one can be solved using these means

I agree Mustard any decent PI solicitor would now you actually need to show some kind of damage to get damages and you have none

@Random92 I did give advice earlier as did everyone else but your just ignoring it all and trying to convince yourself that you have a legal case.

The GP's are just that General Practitioners it make sense to get an expert, the Pediatrician to check out a potential concern.
It is standard practice to involve SW's in potential concerns.
While distressing for you everyone was just doing what they should.
The SW will complete their paperwork following the home visit and you can move on. As a concern was raised the assessment needs to properly written up before the case can be closed.