A Fife medical practice is to apologise to a woman for a delay in responding to her complaint that a tardy diagnosis of her condition had left her infertile.
The woman, known only as Ms C, attended the practice on a number of occasions with various symptoms including constipation, low abdominal pain, recurring urinary symptoms and diarrhoea.
She was also treated in hospital for kidney inflammation.
Eventually, she was diagnosed with pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) and said she was told she was infertile as a result of the delay in diagnosing and treating the condition.
She complained to the Scottish ombudsman that the practice did not provide her with adequate care and treatment by failing to investigate her repeated symptoms and diagnose PID.
The ombudsman accepted independent advice from medics who found Ms C’s care and treatment was not unreasonable.
The adviser said PID was difficult to diagnose, with symptoms which may be indicative of other more common diseases or that may not appear at all.
There was nothing typical or suggestive of a diagnosis of PID in Ms C’s consultation records and the adviser agreed with the practice that she had not presented with a clear-cut case.
The ombudsman did not uphold this aspect of her complaint but did recommend that the practice reflect on issues raised by the adviser regarding its record keeping and the review of symptoms in relation to PID.
Ms C also complained that the practice had delayed in responding to her complaint and this was upheld by the ombudsman who found there had been a delay and a failure to keep the patient updated about the investigation.
The ombudsman made a number of recommendations.
Among them, he asked the practice to:
* Reflect on his adviser’s comments about a lack of detailed recording of negative findings and discuss ways to improve this.
* Reflect on the learning identified in his investigation about the elevated numbers of white cells in urine which appears sterile using standard culture techniques which can be linked to PID.
* Issue a written apology to Ms C for the unreasonable delay in responding to her complaint.
* Review its complaints handling guidance and training.