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.

Professionals cannot read minds, this is why the system has to check out both innocent and guilty parents with equal rigor.
Parents lie, all sorts of parents, wealthy ones, brassic ones, middle class ones, working class ones, ones with lovely homes and ones which are filthy.
The system enables healthcare workers and social workers ( also schools) to pool information to identify which dc are at risk.
When my dc got a broken arm at after school club everyone was asked how it happened. It was a spiral break and actually done by another dc. I understood that everyone wanted to be sure about the circumstances because I would have asked the same questions.
It may feel personal but it really isn't.
(Although it was a bit embarrassing when they asked dc if they knew any SW's and they said yes my mum here)

And this thread, right here, is an example of such a shit place to live now.

This will definitely be DM fodder. Sad face picture of poor mum and dad and baby, probably a link to blaming it on JC/Remain.

If you have a lump in your boob, OP, would you expect your GP to follow the 2-week rapid access to Breast clinic, for suspected cancer? Even though 9/10 breast lumps are nothing? Even though your demographic (I’m guessing you’re not menopause age) is low risk for breast cancer? You’d expect them to follow the right guideline, yes?

They followed the RIGHT guideline for the mark they clinically examined. Fat necrosis which CAN be caused by trauma. Your assertion that they ‘need extra training’ is very offensive. You have literally no idea of presentations of various marks on the skin, or it seems trauma.

Frankly, you sound a lot of hard work and if your husband had the same attitude to the GP and HV, I’m not surprised they stood firm and refused to allow him to leave. Please try to bring your baby up with a better attitude, a bit of respect of others’ knowledge and a better sense of morality than you’re showing here.

Please don't drag a GP through the courts to make a point. We have precious few of them and they are working very hard. Please follow the advice given to you to contact PALS and be done with it.

I'm also fairly surprised the GP was lined up to give your DS his vaccinations rather than a practice nurse or similar to be honest. Or was the Gp called in specifically to look at this mark?

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.

This simply isn’t true. No win no fee is mainly to extract small wins for ordinary people that an insurance company will pay “go away” money for because it’s not going to be financially worth taking to court. your claim might be ridiculous but if you’ll go away for £2000 it’s cheaper to give you the money than defend it.

These days insurance companies have wised up to it and don’t always pay up, calling your bluff instead. At this point no win no fee companies will ask you for money to continue the fight
Because theyve made you believe you have a case, and because you’re invested and angry, you’ll probably pay up. But it’s NO reflection on the strength of your case. In fact, they’re often a fairly poor quality legal service.

It cost around £50k in legal fees when we took the hospital in which my mum died to court, including representation at her inquest. Luckily it was covered by dad’s household insurance, and then when the hospital settled out of court, they also paid costs for our side.

You must be extremely wealthy to have no concerns about legal costs.... with the best Will in the world, you wouldn’t win, it would be money down the drain. Much much better just to complain to the GP’s surgery/PALS. You can’t stop it happening to other families because they didn’t do anything wrong - the GP saw something they were concerned about, it got checked out, they decided it was nothing to worry about. All within about 4 hours. It’s the opposite of malpractice. The system worked exactly as it should - the fact that it was unpleasant for you isn’t great, of course, but much better than the alternative - that the HV and GP miss child abuse because they’re scared on inconveniencing someone.

Hello. I'm sorry you are going through this. It does all sound absolutely ridiculous but it's important to just let them go through their checks and remain calm. They won't find anything. You are good parents. It's probably a ridiculous standard procedure if the police etc were involved.

Whilst I know it's infuriating when you know you have not harmed your child, sadly sometimes that parent who says they are not guilty is! They do have to take any claims and follow them up. I'm not sure in your case why it wasn't stopped when the Dr confirmed it was a normal mark on your baby.

When my DD was born she had some link marks at the top of her back. They wrote that down in her red book as though it needed checking again. She still has it now and she's 4. I do remember thinking why has she wrote that down at the time. I hope you get sorted. Perhaps ring the health visitor for some advice and get the Dr to write a letter confirming the name of the mark? It really doesn't make sense to check your four year old

i think you have to accept it not what they did but how they did it. Making a complaint so the next time they handle it with more tact and an innocent until proven guilty. That is worthy of a complaint

@Random92 you and your partner were treated very inappropriately; I am very surprised at the responses you have received here, and I think you should definitely follow through with your very legitimate complaint.

I wrote a long reply about how I and my son were treated with a much more serious injury (badly broken arm, both bones, at 24 mos and my - true but improbable - story was he fell running on grass).

Mumsnet swallowed the reply so never posted, but the point was, yes I did, quite rightly, get HV scrutiny (and I expected it), but my child was treated and sent home.

Your child should certainly have been vaccinated and sent home, and your HV despatched and then she could have (should have) escalated your concerns about the original birth mark once she confirmed it was unlikely there was any abuse.

What happened to you instead is unacceptable and I applaud your attempts to change it.

Biggest Julie a lot have said Pals complaint

The negativity is about suing

Would you not rather these professionals choose to report 1 or 2 more issues which may turn out to be nothing, than they under report and a child dies 🤷🏻‍♀️.

You have not been criminalised. The GP has not misdiagnosed anything. They have seen an unexplained injury and followed their protocol. Of course it was upsetting for your dp, but they have not done anything wrong. Would you rather GPs were too scared to refer NAIs in case they upset the parents?

It seems the issue was an error on the GPs part.
It’s really not, if they saw something they thought could be a NAI and didn’t escalate, that would be the error.
Dreadful thing for the op to go through, but think of the cases that gps miss, then when something serious happens it’s always noted in the press that the GP has seen the child just days before, yet nothing was escalated. They can’t win.

Someone has Murdered a 12 week baby in the past week. Put it into perspective. They have to be cautious I would prefer this :(

I dont understand why they didnt just refer you up to hospital for a second opinion on the mark and let them check it out. Why the need for ss and holding your wife there. Ridiculous.

I'd of been stressed out through worry being accused of hurting my baby..being held in the docs and then also ss involved and now coming tomorrow. Horrible experience and I'd be feeling wound up too. But just sleep on it and see how you feel in the morning. Hopefully ss coming is just a box ticking exercise thats done when in contact with one child, even though all was proven innocent. Then once they see your dad they can close the case. Try not to be too wound up or defensive.

So as a result, innocent people are dragged through the dirt because they make very poor systems to protect children.

It’s a very effective system though isn’t it? Because a GP had a concern and within a few hours the child was seen by a consultant who was able to diagnose the issue. SS were able to quickly conduct a home visit and close the case.

Where parents are innocent of causing harm, that’s been quickly established and the case closed.

If it were something concerning, it would be being dealt with very quickly indeed.

This is not a poor system. And it’s the opposite of negligence. They could have referred sooner for the birthmark but even with that in his notes it wouldn’t stop them raising concerns about a mark in another location - it would only stop them being concerned about marks already identified as birth marks (as happened to us). DT2 has a huge strawberry birth mark on the side of his head and was under multiple consultants for many things - no one ever showed any concern about it or monitored it.

Yes, it’s awful to be in this situation. It’s far more awful for abuse to be missed or concerns ignored for fear of upsetting innocent parents.

I experienced abuse in my childhood. Some of my behaviour should have raised huge red flags with teachers, doctors etc. Nobody did a thing. Not one.

As a parent I would much rather have this system.

No court would ever entertain a case like this - because what would happen to abused children if doctors were afraid of being sued when following protocol for potential abuse?

And in most parts of the country, there are no vaccination appointments made automatically or reminders sent - you book them yourself at the correct date. You won’t get anywhere with that either.

And the worst possible thing you could do now is avoid taking your children to the GP when they are sick because then you’ll legitimately have social services investigating you.

I think hcps need to learn to communicate much better. I have suffered similar and the heavy handed attitude is diabolical.

Frankly if you have a couple of k to spare a stern solicitirs letter is a good idea.

Thisis orecisely why no hcp will ever be overfamiliar with me again. If they can call ss, they can address me with the same level of respect they expect me to afford them. The GP certainly needs to apoligise wholeheartedly for the falseassertion that you may have harmed your child, fir thevstress they caused and the inconvenience. And taking all that into account hospital staffvshould have provided bottles for the babycand smoked sslmon sarnies for your wife. Let's not forget the nhs is only free at the point of delivery.

Bloody hell OP what a pompous berk you really are. Child abuse happens in all walks of life I don't see why you should be above the law and not have to be put through the same stringent checks put in place to protect ALL children because you are lord muck of turd hall

The gp never asserted lord muck had harmed the child though

Dear Lord, you sound thick OP. I stopped reading when I read that you were sitting and waiting for a vaccination reminder and your child was apparently vaccinated twice because they weren't sure which vaccines they'd administered.

Agree with a previous poster. You're probably just a profoundly unlikeable person with a stinking attitude. That, along with an unexplained mark on your kid, led to the level of escalation that it did.

SomeoneBurntTheToastAgain, make your judgments all you want. I'm sure that makes you a mutually likeable person.

We have always had reminders sent via post. The vaccine was not administered twice, they made a mistake and as a result can't tell how much of the vaccination he received yesterday. So we need a follow up appointment to repeat yesterday's vaccination.

I wasn't even present when it was escalated, I was on my way there from work...
So if you're going to be judgemental, at least get things right about me.

Can I just suggest that you calm down a bit before you meet with social worker. Having been through this a few years ago with my baby grandson I can tell you they may find your attitude a bit worrying. Believe me we were put through the hoops for 18 months not knowing who hurt gs and watching my daughters life fall apart especially when in the end was proven gs dad had hurt him. At the beginning I was angry but soon come to realise they have the babies interest at heart not the parents! As it was we built up a good rapport with our social worker and heard of some awful stories (all anonymous of course) but made me realise they are damned if they do and damned if they dont. Just calm down before they visit as traumatic as it is. Incidentally my youngest was misdiagnosed when she was 3 with just a common virus and sent home. 24 hours later she was rushed to hospital with pneumonia. I didnt complain. Probably should have but I was just so greatful she was alive. Anyway please think again. I cant see how a solicitor thinks you have a case. Just take care of your family and put it down to one of lifes crap experiences x

How can they not tell how much of a vaccine he had? The vaccines come pre-measured, there’s only one amount to give.

Your original post has some discrepancies. You said your dp was kept at the gps for 4 hours, taken to hospital and within minutes the consultant diagnosed a fatty lump. You then go on to say your dp was out of the house for 8 hours. That doesn't add up.
At no point would you or your dp been accused personally of harming your baby. The GP/HV would have asked your dp about the mark, she would have said she didn't know how it happened or what it was, hence the escalation. Babies get bruises all the time, for many reasons. Often because a young sibling has prodded them or dropped a toy on them. When no plausible explanation is given, then it is escalated.
As for the baby having no bottle etc, you could easily have picked one up on your way to meet your DP.
I presume you phoned school to let them know about possibly being late to pick up the sibling too?
You need to calm down. When the social worker visits, if she sees an angry parent ranting on about sueing the NHS she'll think you're barmy!

the heavy handed attitude is diabolical.

Following a policy that was established to protect children from abuse, neglect, and death, is not heavy handed. It's a policy for a reason. There are very few reasons for a non-mobile baby to display signs of trauma. Generally they're going to be either the result of trauma (intentionally or accidentally hurt by a parent or sibling being the most common), or an underlying medical issue which needs to be investigated or resolved. HCPs don't have a choice. They don't make the policy, they follow it. Kicking off at them won't help.

Frankly if you have a couple of k to spare a stern solicitirs letter is a good idea.

It's really not, it's a waste of money.

The GP certainly needs to apoligise wholeheartedly for the falseassertion that you may have harmed your child,

You mean the one they didn't make?