Medical Mistakes in General Practice: A Comprehensive Guide

Your general practitioner (GP) is likely to be your first port of call if you or a member of your family becomes ill. GPs do not usually specialise further in a particular area of medicine (although they may have specific interests) and their training covers all the main branches of medicine. This guide addresses the medical mistakes in general practice, their potential consequences and the complications in bringing a claim for a mistake made by a GP.

What is the role of a general practitioner (GP)?

A GP’s expertise is in their patient rather than in any individual disease or type of medicine and much of their time is spent dealing with family and social matters as well as medical ones. Because of this relationship, it can be particularly distressing if a patient feels let down by their GP.

Most medical mistakes involving GPs will concern a failure to do the basics of medicine properly rather than anything complex because they have to be familiar with such a vast array of medicine.

The problems that we tend to see that arise with GP care are those where a diagnosis has been missed or delayed or where there has been a failure of monitoring of long-term treatments that require regular review.

Problems with a delay in diagnosis and treatment often arise because the GP did not:

• take an adequate history from you
• examine you properly
• undertake necessary tests or
• refer you promptly to a specialist.

Potential Consequences of Missed Diagnoses by the GP

Missed diagnoses often arise because the GP did not fully appreciate the seriousness of your condition. Sometimes those missed diagnoses, can have catastrophic consequences.

• Meningitis is an infection of the lining of the brain (the meninges) that can cause death or brain damage if not caught early and treated.
• Hypoglycaemia (low sugar) can also cause devastating brain damage if not treated properly.
• Even a relatively common condition such as asthma, can be life threatening, and pulmonary embolism (a blood clot in the lung), can be fatal but is often easily treated.

Other serious conditions that are sometimes misdiagnosed include myocardial infarction (heart attack), pulmonary oedema (fluid on the lungs) and heart failure.

Can bringing a claim against a GP be complicated?

Unlike in hospital settings, consultations and decisions about treatments usually only involve two people, the doctor and the patient, which puts a great deal of emphasis on what is recorded in the notes and on the recollections of both you and your GP.

Most cases will also involve specialist expert witnesses providing evidence of what the medical outcome should have been with more appropriate or timely treatment.

Anthony Gold partner and clinical negligence solicitor, Dr James Piers shares his experience of bringing a claim against general practitioners:

Bringing a claim for a mistake made by a GP is never as straightforward as it sounds because it relies so heavily on the notes and recollections of the doctor and patient.  We have worked on a number of cases where the medical backgrounds of our solicitors have been crucial in interpreting this evidence and teasing out any errors or omissions by a GP.  This has proved invaluable in helping patients make successful claims.

If you or someone you know has suffered an injury caused to the mistakes made by a general practitioner (GP), please feel free to get in touch with us. You can mail us your query at mail@anthonygold.co.uk or give us a call on 020 7940 4060 and ask for a member of the Clinical Negligence team.