Hospital admits paper records putting patients at risk after man’s fatal cancer missed for 10 years

Patients are at risk of a missed cancer diagnosis due to a reliance on paper records, an NHS trust has admitted after a man died due to his tumour being overlooked.

Michael Lane, 50, from Shrewsbury, was “failed” by Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust, his family has said after his cancer scan result was misplaced leaving him with a growing kidney tumour for 10 years.

The trust is yet to fully launch an electronic record system a year after an investigation into Mr Lane’s death warned other patients were at risk due to the gap in paper records.

Mr Lane went into Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital for a scan following a referral for suspected cancer in 2011. The radiographer flagged a small tumour but the scan was overlooked, placed within his paper records and never reported as being a concern.

In an investigation report carried out by the trust in May 2021, seen by The Independent, the hospital admitted that had his tumour been seen and operated on earlier he may have survived.

The report also admitted there were ongoing risks within the trust due to gaps in its electronic records system.

It said: “The implementation of an IT solution will not prevent sad cases such as that of Mr Lane where the scan report that was missed took place before the widespread availability of such systems, however, it is clear that until we have an electronic requesting and sign-off system we remain at risk of new cases of missed results and harm occurring as a result of the ongoing reliance of paper-based results.”

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Source: The Independent, 17 July 2022