Victory in cancer delay fight
A Dudley mother-of-two has won her five-year battle for compensation and an apology from the NHS after a delay in diagnosing cervical cancer.
Cheryl Field, aged 33, of Amblecote, has received an undisclosed sum after the potentially-lethal disease went undetected for almost two years. Mrs Field has since been given the all-clear but suffered a series of side-effects.
She has been forced to take early retirement as a result. In November 2001 she underwent a routine smear test that came back clear – just over a year later, Mrs Field started to suffer pain and bleeding and on January 23, 2003, went to see her GP, Dr Shamsh Suleman at Withymoor Village Surgery in Turners Lane, Withymoor Village, Brierley Hill.
Dr Suleman referred her to a gynaecologist on a non-urgent basis, she said.
By May 2003, Mrs Field's symptoms had become much worse and she feared it may be cancer. By June, she was so concerned that she contacted the hospital herself to ask for an appointment but was told she would need an urgent referral letter from her GP.
She claims that when she asked Dr Suleman, he advised her to wait for the appointment.
Mrs Field was finally seen by a gynaecologist at Wordsley Hospital on June 30, 2003, who ordered an urgent biopsy the same day.
Mrs Field was then referred to New Cross Hospital where she underwent a course of daily internal radiation and chemotherapy. She got the all-clear in November 2003.
She appointed solicitors Irwin Mitchell to fight her claim against Dudley South Primary Care Trust. The case settled three weeks before it was due to go to court.
Dudley PCT chief executive Mark Cooke said: "The trust regrets and apologises for the delay."
Lindsay Gibb, a medical negligence expert with Irwin Mitchell solicitors, said an independent expert had advised that if Mrs Field had been referred to hospital when she reported bleeding, cancer could have been treated surgically, meaning she could have avoided the devastating radiation treatment.
