Its been 10 years but now I'm older I want answers! NEGLECT

[PhoenixLaw]

Hi All

 

I'm sorry! This is a long story!

 

I'm really looking for some answers/guidance on the following:

 

10 years ago when I was 15 my Dad died after suffering with an illness for 3 very long years. I am the second eldest of 6 children and for years I have been wanting to get answers from the NHS regarding my Dad's care. Now I'm that bit older and wiser I would like to see if there is anything I can do.

 

Over these 3 years my Dad declined drastically and would get crippling daily pain 'attacks' that would last hours. We believed his illness may have either been a muscular or cardio vascular disease. Towards the end he had lost quite a lot of weight and had blotches on his skin in the areas where he felt the most pain. These looked like deep bruising. I would spend a lot of time with him helping to apply pressure to certain parts of his body during these 'attacks' to help ease the pain. Once the pain was so intense he burst a blood vessel in his nose and blood was everywhere.(Sorry to be so open here but I want to paint the right picture). My Dad was constantly trying to get appointments with his GP and when he did he would send him for tests that took ages to attend due to waiting lists etc. The tests he did have proved nothing and were totally useless. Back and forth my Dad went to A+E when his pain was so severe and all they were able to do is give him basic drugs and wait until the pain subsided for a bit then we would go home and back to square one again and again.

 

Then on a day in September 2002 we found my Dad dead in the living room(he was sleeping downstairs as easier then climbing the stairs and he tried to avoid waking us when an 'attack' came on). My Dad went through 2 post-mortems and it took over 2 weeks to put him to rest. At the coroners hearing his death was ruled as inconclusive and even the GP admitted that he thought my Dad's illness was in his head!!! (I personally feel something underhand has happened here but can't be 100% sure at this point in time).

 

We have a lot of the documents and information from appointments etc still and my Dad's samples in storage on ice. What makes the situation worse is that a few months into my Dad's illness he was trying to finish a job(he was previously a carpenter and wanted to try and complete the job he was on and he did not work again after this)but unfortunately he did not know the 'person' he was doing the job for was dodgy. When it came to my Dad going around there to get his pay at the end of the job the 'person' offered him large bags of drugs as payment, naturally my Dad was not happy about this and it ended up that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time and witnessed someone get shot and killed. My Dad naturally gave his statement to the police and when it came to the murderers court hearing my Dad requested that his statement was withdrawn for the safety of his family as the culprit was more 'connected' then we originally thought.

 

The DC's on the case went against my Dad's wishes and put his statement forward anyway resulting in us having 12 hours to be moved by the witness protection programme-WWP up north. We were provided with a transit van that we could only fill once and £2.000 to set up a new home. We were not allowed to speak to any other family members or close friends and had to live a new life with a different sirname.(I dont mind sharing this now as my Dad's death has probably eliminated any threat to us.) How this ties in is that my Dad had already had appointments etc and notes with GP before the WPP move and his medical history was not passed on so he had to start again from scratch with the worst GP I have known.

 

So here I am 10 years later with a Son of my own, 3 younger sisters, 1 younger and 1 older brother wanting to find out what went wrong. Most importantly we now live not knowing what my Dad died of and if this could be hereditary and passed down to any of us. This undiagnosis during my fathers illness caused us so much worry and stress, Dad was unable to work and claimed benefits to get us by. Even with the benefits he received due to there being no diagnosis it was virtually impossible to get Disabilty/Sickness benefit and with a family of 2 adults and 6 children JSA and child maintenance doesn't go far at all!!

 

I need to get all my information together and in order to take this forward and I will do it. If I fail to get anywhere at least I know I've tried. I know the NHS has failed my Dad and our family and also the WPP is partially to blame but I will look into that at a later stage. My questions are as follows; What would you do? How would you do it?

 

Again sorry for the length of this post and thank you for taking the time to read.

[PhoenixLaw]

Hi, anyone? 100 views and no responses lol. It would be great to know what you would do in my situation!! Thanks

[sallypotter]

If you're seeking compensation from nhs you're out of time.

 

What are you seeking exactly?

[PhoenixLaw]

If you're seeking compensation from nhs you're out of time.

 

What are you seeking exactly?

 

Compensation is not on the top of my agenda. I would like the people responsible for issues raised to be highlighted and ideally a second opinion on the coroners report. Ultimately I would like to find out what was wrong with him but this may be impossible. Even if in the end it is just a complaint thats filed I will be happy. If anyone of us get the same illness in years to come I need to be able to add this complaint to our family medical history.

[assisted blonde]

I dont really know what you can do but I do know that the medical profession are not perfect and there are illnesses that are not identified as there is not the knowledge. My worry is that you are going to become obsessed with this and consequently it could affect you and your family for a long time, obviously you want to know the cause of death but knowing wont really change anything, it wont alter the life you and your family led, or the pain your father was in.

 

I honestly think that it is unlikly that you will get the answers that you are looking for, and the NHS may not have failed your dad but if they cant reach a diagnosis what can they do except keep looking, tests do take a long time to come through, waiting lists are long and sometimes you just never find out what the problem was.

[PhoenixLaw]

I dont really know what you can do but I do know that the medical profession are not perfect and there are illnesses that are not identified as there is not the knowledge. My worry is that you are going to become obsessed with this and consequently it could affect you and your family for a long time, obviously you want to know the cause of death but knowing wont really change anything, it wont alter the life you and your family led, or the pain your father was in.

 

I honestly think that it is unlikly that you will get the answers that you are looking for, and the NHS may not have failed your dad but if they cant reach a diagnosis what can they do except keep looking, tests do take a long time to come through, waiting lists are long and sometimes you just never find out what the problem was.

 

Please don't teach me to suck eggs. My original post was long enough so didn't want to make it too detailed but I do have evidence for neglect its just how I go about making a complaint in the best way. I don't need to be told what will or wont affect my family in the long run and am controlled enough to not let something control my life. My Dad was not given the right tools to find out what his illness was, his GP would send him to have tests that were in no way related to they symptoms he was having.

[assisted blonde]

Not trying to tell you what to do was merely commenting, if you are offended then I apologise but I really dont think your tone is appropriate, I was actually doing a bit of l research into trying to find out if medical records etc could be passed on when a person was on witness protection. but I think I will just drop it now and let you get on with it.

[sallypotter]

I'm pretty sure you have a time limit on complaints and 10 years is well out of time.

 

But if you want to complain then write to the hospital concerned and see what they say.

 

Can't see you getting anywhere to be honest.

 

Sal

[PhoenixLaw]

Not trying to tell you what to do was merely commenting, if you are offended then I apologise but I really dont think your tone is appropriate, I was actually doing a bit of l research into trying to find out if medical records etc could be passed on when a person was on witness protection. but I think I will just drop it now and let you get on with it.

 

The same here, I don't want to offend you either. I just felt it was a bit of a defeatist stance to take in your OP. I didn't ask weather I should do it, I asked how should I do it. I would of looked into this much sooner but its taken this long to get life back in control and moving in the right way for the family etc. No offence intended I just know all to well that the medical profession are not perfect.

[PhoenixLaw]

I'm pretty sure you have a time limit on complaints and 10 years is well out of time.

 

But if you want to complain then write to the hospital concerned and see what they say.

 

Can't see you getting anywhere to be honest.

 

Sal

 

Well I will update here with how I get on. Thank you.

[sallypotter]

Good luck.

 

Sal

[jackieandwayne]

Well, just one of my "out of the box thoughts". You say you have a son now. I should imagine you want to make sure he is as healthy as can be. How about, seeing your own GP as a starting point, and telling him this story, and add that you are so worried it may be a hereditary condition. Probably get you nowhere, rather a bizzarre thought of mine, but, what if it at least opened the door to having your dad's illness looked at again? Would it at least help you to know what his illness was?

 

I do understand that you MUST know, because you can beat yourself up for the rest of your life "not knowing", and that's no use to man or beast is it? Not all of us can put things away neatly after the event. Its a lucky person who can.

 

Other than that, I really don't know what else to suggest. But I really hope this is brought to a conclusion for you.

[assisted blonde]

Claims for medical negligence must be within 3 years of the harm suffered, Negligence anyway will be measured against the Bolam test whereby did the Dr do what was normal amoungst his peers.

[Marianne7]

Another consideration in cases of possible negligence is the question of whether the outcome would have been any different had the tests and/or diagnosis been made sooner.

[BazzaS]

Claims for medical negligence must be within 3 years of the harm suffered, Negligence anyway will be measured against the Bolam test whereby did the Dr do what was normal amoungst his peers.

Sweeping generalisations are often wrong.

 

What if the harm suffered was suffered by a minor : the "clock" doesn't start ticking until the minor attains majority.

What if the harm is not immediately apparent? The clock doesn't start ticking until the harm is apparent, not when it was caused. This might be open to debate of the meaning of "suffered" : do you mean "caused" or "apparent".

 

Bolam still applies, but has been modified by Bolitho. A group of "responsible practitioners" might agree on "Plan A", and thus Bolam says that "Plan A" thus isn't negligent as there is no breach of duty of care, but if a court holds that to be "manifestly incorrect", Bolitho says that it could still be negligent, despite Bolam.

Edited June 9, 2012 by BazzaS

[BazzaS]

Another consideration in cases of possible negligence is the question of whether the outcome would have been any different had the tests and/or diagnosis been made sooner.

 

Indeed, as there are 3 components to negligence:

Existence of a duty of care,

Breach of that duty of care, and

Harm resulting.

 

If the outcome wouldn't have been any different, no "harm" (in the legal sense) has been caused even if there was a breach of an extant duty of care, even if there was a bad outcome.

[assisted blonde]

Yes I agree it was a general statement and I should have gone into more detail, didnt mention under 18 as not relevent in this case, i assumed that the OP would have looked up Bolam and got more insight so didnt spell it all out, Bolam would have linked to Bolitho if called up on internet

I did make a rather quick answer and should have gone into more detail re negligence etc but I assumed that this would put the Op on the right track to looking things up.

Will clarify further in future.

[Old Cogger]

Been a long time, after an incident with a young daughter of mine who was 18 (incident happened at 17 yrs old) there was an enquiry going on reference a surgeon, I contacted the hospital authorities concerned and mentioned the case of my Daughter, but they eventually rang back and stated that Hospital files are destroyed after a 3 year period (after death of a patient) therefore info would not be forthcoming and any use to them in the investiagtion.

 

I even offered to send copy of an investigation paid for, by a Bath investigation/negligence complaints company, but they did not want to know.

[Feebee_71]

One thing, you have said you would like a second opinion on the coronor's report - what are you hoping to achieve with this 2nd opinion?

 

The coronor has made their report based on the results of not only one but 2 post mortems. They will have looked into items such as all available medical records - from hospitals and GP's records as well as test results carried out as part of the PM. They were unable to determine a definitive cause of death therefore ruled it inconclusive. This is unlikely to be overturned as they would need further information with which to find a definitive cause of death.

 

I can understand you wanting answers and, to a degree, to hold someone responsible for not finding out what was wrong with your father however, even nowadays, medicine is not always able to find causes of illness or treat such illnesses.

 

Feebee_71