Family angry at hospital’s cancer failure

The husband and children of Lynda Dunn, from Mexborough, Doncaster, said he was still “heartbroken” that Rotherham General Hospital allowed his wife’s condition to go untreated for three months.

It comes after the family won a medical negligence claim over medics’ failure to pass on the results of tests and a chest x-ray revealing the cancer on Mrs Dunn’s lungs to her GP on more than one occasion.

“Mum should have been told she had cancer months before. By the time she was told, it was too late,” said daughter Danielle Dunn.

She was first attended Rotherham General after suffering from seizures in July 2011, when a tumour was first discovered. Mrs Dunn was not told.

In October that year, she was admitted for seizures a second time and tests confirmed she was suffering from lung cancer, but again she was allowed home without an official diagnosis.

It was not until the end of that month, during a third spell in hospital, that she received the news, by which time the cancer had spread to her brain and she had become too ill to undergo treatment. She died three weeks later at the age of 48.

The Dunn family won a payout from Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust after it admitted that the patient should have been told of the results of the chest x-ray in July 2011.

Had Mrs Dunn and her GP have been given the information in the first instance, she would have been referred for chemotherapy. With such treatment she is likely to have survived for at least two months longer than she did.

Graham Dunn, Mrs Dunn’s husband, said: “We are heartbroken to have lost her, but what makes it worse is that the hospital failed to tell her she was ill and failed to treat her until it was too late.

“Not only would Lynda have lived longer, she would have had time to get her affairs in order and say goodbyes that she never had the chance to say.”

“We missed out on valuable time we could have spent together as a family and we don’t want other families to have to go through the same thing,” added Miss Dunn.

Lawyers representing the family encouraged them to speak out following the legal battle in a bid to raise awareness of the problem of delayed diagnosis in serious illnesses.

Scott Haslam, of Raleys Solicitors said: “This is a very sad case but unfortunately it is not the only one of its kind. All too often we are approached by families only to find that there has been a substantial delay in reaching a diagnosis or commencing treatment.”

A spokeswoman for Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust said: “The trust accepts that the miscommunication was not acceptable. The trust is committed to learning from investigations of this nature and strives to ensure that patients always receive a safe and reliable service.”