Mistakes by medical professionals meant a young wife and mother died from cervical cancer. Our medical negligence solicitors helped her family get answers about what happened with a compensation claim.
Our client, Claire*, regularly attended routine cervical cancer smear tests near her home in Staffordshire every three years. In 2011, she started to experience problems with her bowels and bloating, but she was told that her smear test that year was normal.
Due to the normal smear test results, her GP thought she had Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and gave her medication for this.
In 2014, the GP couldn’t complete Claire’s next routine smear test due to bleeding during the procedure. Claire’s GP referred her to hospital, where they continued to encounter the same issues and delayed the test again.
After a successful smear test two weeks later and a further biopsy, Claire received a stage 2 cervical cancer diagnosis. She saw an oncologist who explained that the previous diagnosis didn’t show the full extent of the cancer and that she actually had stage 4 cervical cancer. That meant the cancer had spread to another organ.
Claire had chemotherapy and radiotherapy but the doctors told her that her outlook was poor despite the treatment. Fearing the worst, she brought forward her marriage, but sadly passed away a few months later at the age of 39.
How We Helped
Claire’s husband contacted our medical negligence team to make a compensation claim on behalf of Claire’s estate and her young son. Jenna Harris, a Partner in our Birmingham office, took on their case and investigated Claire’s treatment.
Jenna’s investigation suggested that medical staff had failed to correctly interpret the smear test results in 2011 and failed to refer Claire to a colposcopy clinic. She consulted independent medical experts who confirmed that a colposcopy referral could have minimised the spread of Claire’s cancer, making it curable.
The NHS Trust responsible for Claire’s treatment admitted medical negligence and acknowledged the failures that Jenna had uncovered. Jenna then negotiated a compensation settlement for the family out of court.
If you or a loved one have received negligent treatment for cervical cancer, our specialist medical negligence solicitors could help you to claim compensation. Visit our Cervical Cancer Claims page for more details.
*Not client’s real name
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