Woman Asks All Patients To See Their GP In Person After Deadly Cancer Misdiagnosed Over The Phone | UK | New UK News

Julie Forward said lockdown restrictions prevent doctors from making an accurate diagnosis. The grandmother added, “Week after week, I got stoned. The most important thing to come is that people need to be able to go back to their doctors face to face. “I’m lucky because I’m still here – other people have died.”

Last week, NHS England told GPs they must offer the option of initial in-person appointments unless there is a clinical reason not to do so, such as a patient with symptoms of Covid.

Julie, 60, said yesterday that she had had several phone consultations while in confinement for burning pain, only to be prescribed antacid remedies.

Repeated calls for an in-person assessment were rejected – but her family feared she was seriously ill.

It wasn’t until an unrelated routine hospital appointment that a potentially fatal tumor was discovered.

Doctors saw that Julie’s intestine had ruptured from a cancerous lump squeezed on it and that she was showing early signs of sepsis.

This sparked an 11-week battle for life in the hospital, where she was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma and underwent chemotherapy.

Julie said of GPs who choose to treat patients over the phone: “This lack of contact means they just can’t get a clear picture of what’s going on. You can talk for as long as you want on the phone, but if a doctor can’t look at you and see the pain you’re feeling and how you weaken yourself – like I did – they can’t make the decisions that may do it. save a life.”

Some doctors are resisting calls to resume all in-person consultations, saying they would be at greater risk as long as Covid persists.

Others deny ever having closed their doors, insisting that in-person appointments have always been available to patients in need. In March, about 56 percent of the 28.3 million GP appointments were in person and 40 percent by phone.

But cases like Julie’s show how some patients suffer from a lack of personal contact. Hull’s grandmother, three children and mother of two, said she spent six weeks calling her office every Monday at 8 a.m. to request an appointment.

“I told them: I felt weaker, the pain on my side was getting worse. Week after week, I was smitten. My husband told me I was getting thinner and thinner – he said weeks before my diagnosis that he thought I had cancer.

Dean, the refusal collector’s husband, said: “I knew deep down that she had cancer, I just wanted a healthcare professional to look at her and do something to save her.”

Dean, 54, said he sees his wife “looking older every week. There wasn’t a single thing to do. They recommended indigestion remedies and peppermint pills when Julie’s life was threatened by cancer.

“It continues to this day, across the country. GPs are hiding behind Covid because it is easier to try to diagnose patients over the phone. The situation we find ourselves in now is the reason why this cannot happen.

“Patients need to return to surgeries where they can be properly assessed.”

Julie added, “Dean told me he was worried about cancer, but I just didn’t want to believe him. When you talk to a doctor on the phone, it’s not the same as looking at someone’s face and saying, “I’m worried, I feel really bad, I need help.”

Her life-threatening condition was discovered during an ultrasound of polyps on her gallbladder.

Julie, who ran a holiday park before she got sick, added: “Since being diagnosed with cancer, the treatment I have received from the NHS has been top notch. Under their care, I believe I will survive this.

“I am getting stronger and I am determined to always be there for my husband, my daughters and my grandchildren. But it was all so unnecessary as it should have been picked up when I asked to see a doctor for the first time last August.

“For weeks it was allowed to grow and spread until I suffered a broken intestine and found myself in critical condition which meant I hardly survived the night.

“If I needed to see a dentist I could go, but patients still can’t come in to see a doctor face to face.

“This needs to be sorted out now or else other people will find themselves in the situation I find myself in, fighting for their lives.”

Julie’s illness was first noticed on a camping trip to celebrate her 60th birthday when she couldn’t open a jar and found her strength was waning. From August to Christmas, she called the GP’s office at the Clifton Center in Hull. Rachel Power, executive director of the Patients’ Association, said similar stories she had heard from patients “couldn’t be clearer.”

Writing in the Express today, she says, “There are limits to what can be done over the phone.”

NHS England told GPs they need to reopen receptions and let people book their first face-to-face dates – removing the ‘total
triage ”- for the first time since the early days of the crisis.

But a Bradford doctor said last night it was’ a balancing act ‘if a patient needed to be seen in person:’ In many ways we have found a new way of working during the pandemic which allowed us to see more patients in a shorter period. period. However, there is clearly an increased risk of misdiagnosis.

“I started seeing more patients in the flesh this week … but I am fully aware that many of my colleagues remain reluctant.”

Dr Dan Poulter, MP for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich, said: “It is absolutely essential that the majority of GP appointments take place face to face. It is very easy to misdiagnose or overlook important signs or symptoms during a virtual consultation. They are not a sustainable or safe model of care. “

His Conservative colleague and NHS GP Dr James Davies, MP for Vale of Clwyd, added: ‘While new ways of working have their place, many patients now want to see a return to some sort of normalcy.’

NHS Hull Clinical Commission-ing Group said: ‘We are sorry to hear from Ms Mercer [Julie’s maiden name] live. ”He said he was“ eager to help investigate this matter on his behalf and we have already reported it with his practice ”.

• Have you had any problems seeing a GP face to face? Call the Daily Express on 0208 612 7077 or email expressnews@reachplc.com