Cancer tragedy dad wasn’t given a fair chance by doctors, says grieving widow
A GRIEVING widow told an inquest how her husband ‘wasn’t given a fair chance’ when doctors misdiagnosed his cancer.
Tom Thornton married partner Chantelle and saw their son born just weeks before his death aged 25.
Staff at Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust earlier failed to detect that Mr Thornton was suffering from cancer of the appendix, instead believing he had appendicitis, the coroner was told.
It was one of a ‘catalogue of errors’ made from the point he was first admitted to North Manchester General Hospital in August 2014, to his death in January 2015.
Bad record keeping, poor management and a lack of communication with the family were part of a myriad of issues surrounding the recruitment consultant’s care, an inquest into his death in Heywood heard. His dad Kevin Thornton, who described his son as ‘wonderful,’ told the court he didn’t think ‘anybody took it seriously.’
Mr Thornton, who was a passionate rugby player, trusted doctors all the way through his care, telling his dad ‘if they’re not worried, I’m not worried.’ The family only found out there had been a misdiagnosis in the months following his death, it was heard, when they contacted bosses at the trust to check if his health problems were hereditary.
In a statement read to the court, wife Chantelle said: “I don’t feel Tom was given a fair chance. He meant the world to me. We don’t want this happening to anybody else.”
In his final weeks, Mr Thornton proposed to Chantelle and the pair married a month before he passed away. He was also able to see the birth of his son Maxwell Joseph, three weeks before his death.
The inquest heard how Mr Thornton, who lived in Middleton, first went to the walk-in centre at North Manchester General in August 2014, after complaining he’d been suffering abdominal pain for five days.
He was then admitted to A&E where medics diagnosed him with acute appendicitis following an ultrasound. Mr Thornton was listed for surgery to remove the appendix the next day, but the procedure was delayed.
Professor Matthew Makin, medical director at the trust, said the delay in the procedure was documented by doctors but ‘the reason was not’ – the first of a series of examples of poor record-keeping, it was said.
Following surgery, his appendix was taken away to be examined at the pathology lab at Royal Oldham Hospital by Dr Khalid Ahmed, to double check they hadn’t missed anything.
Under pressure to return the samples to the hospital within 10 working days – the standard timeline expected – Dr Ahmed worked overtime during the weekend due to staff shortages, the coroner heard. But he failed to spot that the cells were cancerous, instead confirming the appendicitis diagnosis, it was said.
In a statement read to the court, Dr Ahmed said he wished to apologise to the family. He said it was a ‘difficult case’ due to inflammation on the appendix. He said the examination was carried out as ‘an additional backlog of work, carried out in the late evening.’ The statement said that since the case he has ‘made changes to [his] work load.’
Mr Thornton was released from hospital following the surgery and didn’t have any further contact with Pennine until almost two months later, when he came back to hospital complaining of pain on the scar left by surgery. Further tests were carried out on him to see if he suffered a blood clot, but he was sent back home after Dr Muhammed Islam decided there were no concerns.
Asked by coroner Joanne Kearsley if there was any reason to review the pathology report at this stage, Dr Islam said no. But Tom came back to hospital just two weeks later, complaining of further abdominal pain.
Medics thought that his bowel had become trapped in the incision left by the surgery – and he had further tests including an ultrasound and x-rays, the court heard. After reviewing the medical records, Prof Makin, who joined the trust after Tom’s death, told the coroner it is believed surgery was carried out to reduce the size of the hernia, but it was ‘not recorded’ in any notes, which he admitted was ‘not best practice.’
A CT scan was carried out on November 25, and doctors finally diagnosed Tom with advanced cancer the next day. He had one round of chemotherapy, but wasn’t deemed well enough to have any further rounds of treatment as the cancer had spread to so much of his body, it was heard.
Proceeding