Cancer screening reporting errors led to mum's death

The family of a mother who died from cervical cancer after twice being wrongly told she had negative results have been awarded undisclosed damages.

The misreporting of Louise Gleadell's cervical screening results was admitted by University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust following her death aged 38 in March 2018.

An internal review in 2017 found the samples, taken four years apart, were not good enough to produce reliable results but neither Ms Gleadell - a mum to three boys - nor her relatives were told about the "inadequate" samples while she was still alive.

Her family have now been given an undisclosed payout, with the trust apologising for its mistakes that had "devastating consequences".

Ms Gleadell, from Cossington in Leicestershire, was diagnosed with cervical cancer two years prior to her death. It was, by that stage, too late to have surgery.

Two cervical screening tests, carried out in 2008 and 2012, were misreported to her as negative.

It meant that over a four-year period, she had been given false reassurance about her health when she was developing cervical cancer, and the opportunity to treat pre-cancerous cells passed.

Ms Gleadell's sisters, Laura and Clare Gleadell, say their grief has been compounded by knowing that their sister's death was avoidable.

Laura, 43, said: "Her death was preventable and that for us is ultimately really hard.

"It would not have developed into cancer had she been recalled in either 2008 or 2012.

"If she had had treatment for cell abnormalities before it even developed into cancer, she would not have died."

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Source: BBC News, 6 April 2025