You'd need to seek the advice of a solicitor that deals specifically in medical litigation.

There are procedures, though. Before spending tons on a solicitor, If the issue stems from your GP practice, your first port of call should always be the practice manager. With the hospital, there is a complaints' procedure that should be followed. You will get the details of this from the hospital itself.

From here on in, you need to start taking notes of dates when you spoke to people, copies of all or any meetings and so on. If you need to access medical records, be aware there is usually a charge applied to this. But yeah, no one here can say whether or not the duty of care you received fell below acceptable standards.

Something that was an eye opener to us, my wife was diagnosed with grade 3 and stage 3 BC cancer. She was a boot up the backside away from being stage 4. They got it all though. However, we expected she'd be monitored for reoccurrence as her chances are high, yet she will only get one mammogram per year. You read people on here getting scans at least every 6 months for the first 2 years, yet she gets nothing.

Dear Prof

Thanks for your reply.

Here is the letter from the oncologist per verbatim

cover letter from GP.22 July 2022

Dear xxxx

Please see the reply regarding oncotype DX testing from oncology.

I hope this answers your enquiry regarding the testing.

Dr xxxxx

From oncologist

Dear Dr xxxx

Mrs xxxxx (dob)address.

Thank you for your recent letter regarding this lady. This lady had a low risk breast cancer treated last year. We would consider patients with borderline chemotherapy benefit using the PREDICT tool potentially for oncotyoe DX testing but in the context of a low risk breast cancer( with no chemo benefit using PREDICT) there is no indication for either consideration of chemotherapy nor oncotype DX testing. I hope this helps.

yours sincerely

signed by Dr xxxx

Consultant Clinical oncology at xxxxPM on 19/07/2022

Letter sent to a GP in my large surgery

date 31/12/2021

Dear Dr yyyy

Mrs xxxxx(dob) address.

Diagnosis Screen detected grade II, 17 MM IDC with lobular features and DCIS

ER 7,PR 6,HER-2 negative

0/1 lymph nodes.

Surgery Right wide  local excision and sentinel lymph node biopsy ( Nov 2021)

Adjuvant treatment: Endoctine therapy and radiotherapy

Outcome: Discuss result and discuss referral to oncology for consultation and discussion about endocrine therapy and radiotherapy.

Review in clinic one year for first year surveillance mammogram and clinical review.

This was followed by report from breast surgeon .....

There is no problem with her breast or Atilla but xxxx is complaining of feeling short of breath......

We discussed about the receptor and told her that her cancer is ER7,PR6,HER-2and therefore will need discussion with oncology regarding endocrine therapy.

I have also explained that I will refer her to oncology to discuss the benefits of radiotherapy.

From our point of view we will follow her up in one year with a clinic appointment and a mammogram.The second year she will be folllwed up by our Breast care nurse with a further mammogram and then an annual mammogram until year 10 post diagnosis.

I do not have any explaination for her shortness of breath and she may benefit from some respiratory physician investigation.

Yours sincerely

 Xxxxxxxxx consultant onco-plastic breast surgeon.

The input by the oncologist was ONE phone call where she rattled through a script ( a bit like a call centre operator)

I had a question about the percentage survival if I refused radiotherapy and she told me....just let me finish and then I will answer your question.

At the end of her spiel I asked her the question above again and her reply was ..... if you don't want radiotherapy that's fine don't take it!

This was not the question I had asked.

On the day of radiotherapy I still had questions as my therapy had been condensed from 15 sessions over  3 weeks to ONE WEEK.

She was not there as she was on holiday.

I've only had one interaction with this oncologist and that was the rushed spiel over the phone in March 2022.

Now here is the eye opener for me.

Sent to yet another GP in the surgery dated 28 Sept 2022.

Dear Dr CCCC

On examination today....... In right breast in ......there was lymphoedema of the breast.

There was no palpable lump.

In the left  breast there was an ill defined palpable lump.

xxxxx went on to have a bilateral mammogram showed post operative changes in right breast.

However the left breast does show a suspicious mass measuring 21x20 MM across.........

This represents a new finding since previous mammogram dated August 2021.

The ultrasound showed......

xxxx had a core biopsy of the left breast.

I have explained to xxx the presence of this mass and the fact it looks suspicious for breast cancer and that we will know better when we have tge histological result and discuss at that point what we can do for this,

In the meantime nurse zzz will refer her to the lymphoedema clinic.

I have decided to book a CT scan of her chest,abdomen and pelvis and a bone scan.

I will review sxxx in clinic when I have the results of the core biopsy and the scans.

yours sincerely 

XxxxxConsultant Oncoplastic Breast surgeon