NHS ‘sorry’ as patients are wrongly told: You’ve got cancer

A HEALTH board has sent out almost 400 letters of apology after a computing blunder meant patients were wrongly told they had cancer.

NHS Forth Valley said an unknown number of people received letters telling them cancer was one of their ‘pre-existing conditions’.

Others were falsely informed that they had endometriosis, a serious womb condition that can lead to infertility.

Patients and GPs received the false information due to an IT ‘glitch’ in discharge letters, which are routinely despatched when people leave hospital following treatment.

Last night Scottish Tory health spokesman Miles Briggs said: ‘It is obviously extremely concerning that a health board would make these kinds of mistakes and it will inevitably undermine patient confidence.

‘NHS Forth Valley must therefore apologise unreservedly and reassure the public that no other mistakes have been made.’

The health board said it did not know exactly how many people were involved. But as a precaution, it has written to 386 who received discharge letters which may have been affected.

The wife of one patient described the blunder as ‘cruel’ and expressed concern for how particularly vulnerable people might react.

Following a stay in hospital earlier this month, the woman’s husband received his discharge letter through the post within the last few days.

She told the Stirling Observer newspaper: ‘We read through the document and were horrified to note that in the section entitled “co-morbidities”, both colorectal cancer and lung cancer were mentioned.

‘Naturally, we were both shocked and deeply concerned that the first time we were hearing about this was in a letter, which didn’t look like it should have been sent to us.’

They eventually spoke with a consultant. The patient’s wife said: ‘We were told there was a coding error and the letter was sent in error. He was able to confirm that, in fact, my husband did not have the inferred colorectal and lung cancer.’

In a further call, she was told there was an upgrade to the IT system and it appeared the discharge notes had been sent in error.

The woman said: ‘I was beyond furious. My husband had been sitting with his head in his hands having been handed a potential diagnosis of terminal illness.’

Stirling Nationalist MSP Bruce Crawford said: ‘This is clearly a very serious error, and will cause great alarm to people who may have received a letter that suggests that they have a serious illness.

‘I want to understand the scale of this error, and how many people have been contacted with incorrect information.

‘It is crucial that NHS Forth Valley take proactive steps to rectify this situation.’

An NHS Forth Valley spokesman said: ‘Following a software update to our patient information system, we recently identified an issue with the accuracy of the information contained in a small section of the patient discharge letter which lists details of any pre-existing health conditions.

‘This issue only affected discharge letters sent to GPs and, in some cases, patients during a short period from August 1-7, 2019.

‘We have written to the patients who received a discharge letter during this period to highlight the issue and apologise for any concern this IT error may have caused. Local GPs were also informed.’

‘I was beyond furious’