09.10.12
Sherwood Forest calls 79 women back for treatment review
An urgent inspection is being carried out at Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust after mistakes emerged in the testing of breast cancer tissue samples. 79 women are being recalled to ensure they are receiving the best treatment.
The CQC will look at screening, pathology and clinical governance in the trust. An audit earlier this year found that the tumours of 120 women were wrongly classified, which means around half may not have had the best treatment and could have led to 5% more deaths than there should have been over ten years.
Monitor has already announced it was taking regulatory action against the trust because it had lost £6m in the first three months of this year, and was struggling to meet payments on a PFI loan.
Dr Nabeel Ali, the executive medical director, said: “Caring for patients is our absolute priority and so we are extremely sorry that some women's tests had been under reported. We very much regret that some women received wrong advice.
“I should make it absolutely clear that there are no problems with the diagnosis of breast cancer itself, only with a test that helps to decide on the most appropriate prevention therapy following treatment for breast cancer.”
CQC chief executive David Behan said: “This urgent inspection will allow us to take an in-depth look at the quality and safety of the Trust's services that relate to breast cancer screening, pathology and clinical governance.
“The action we are taking, alongside Monitor's intervention, will ensure that both regulators have a good picture of the quality and safety of the Trust's services and the robustness of its governance.”
Monitor's chief operating officer, Stephen Hay, added: “We are using our formal regulatory powers of intervention because we are concerned the trust has failed to get to grips with the scale of the problems it faces.
“In addition to the trust's financial difficulties our concern about its leadership has been heightened by the disclosure that some breast cancer patients are to receive an apology from the trust and an urgent review of their treatment after an investigation into faulty pathology test results.
“If either the CQC's inspection, or the trust's own external expert review, reveals any other matters of concern we will not hesitate to intervene again.”
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