House of Commons Debate - Pulmonary Embolisms: Diagnosis (30 November 2022)

Summary

This is an Adjournment Debate from the House of Commons on Wednesday 30 November 2022 on patient safety concerns relating to the diagnosis of pulmonary embolisms.

Content

What is an Adjournment Debate?

There is a 30 minute Adjournment Debate at the end of each day's sitting of the House of Commons. They provide an opportunity for an individual backbench MP to raise an issue and receive a response from the relevant Minister. Unlike many other debates, these take place without a question which the House of Commons must then make a decision on.

Diagnosis of pulmonary embolisms

In this debate Helen Hayes, MP for Dulwich and West Norwood, outlined significant patient safety issues relating to misdiagnosis of pulmonary embolisms. She highlighted concerns raised by her constituent, Tim Edwards, relating to the premature death of his mother Jenny. His research has estimated that there was a minimum of 400 excess pulmonary embolism deaths across England from April 2021 to March 2022, and that that excess figure is attributable to cases that were missed.

She asked the Minister to agree to work with NHS England to commission a review of the data set out in a forthcoming report from Tim Edwards and the related concerns raised by the Royal College of Radiologists, with a view to ensuring that the rate of misdiagnosis of pulmonary embolism is greatly reduced.