A GP practice has been ordered to make a written apology to the parents of a boy who died from cancer after doctors "unreasonably delayed" referring him to a specialist.
Scottish Public Services Ombudsman Jim Martin also said staff at the GP practice should offer to meet the parents to "re-enforce this apology".
He launched an investigation after the boy's mother, identified as Mrs C, complained about the care her child received.
Mr Martin ruled the practice had failed to provide the boy with "appropriate clinical treatment" and had "unreasonably delayed" referring him to hospital.
The Ombudsman's report told how the boy, then aged six-and-a-half, attended the GP surgery several times between May 2011 and September 2011, complaining of weight loss, fatigue, vomiting, nausea and bone pain. He was seen by a number of doctors there and various examinations and tests were carried out. When his condition did not improve, he went to Ninewells Hospital in Dundee and then the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Edinburgh, and was diagnosed with stage four Burkitt's lymphoma - a form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Despite treatment, the youngster died in May 2012.
The report said: "It is clear Master A attended the practice several times with the same problems, Mrs C expressed repeated concerns about his condition, the symptoms Master A was experiencing were in the list of possible symptoms of cancer and his health was not improving."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article