Smear test bungles rob brilliant scientist of children and career

Published on Wednesday 6 April 2011 14:54

A SCOTTISH health board is facing calls for an inquiry into its smear-testing regime, after a woman given the all-clear was later diagnosed with cancer.

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde has a "duty of care" to contact other patients tested around the same time as Helen McGlone to establish whether they were also wrongly cleared, according to a leading patients' body.

The 31-year-old was told that her tests, in 2005 and 2006, were negative.

By the time her cancer was detected, it was so advanced she had to have a hysterectomy.

She was told she could sue the health board for 5 million in a Court of Session ruling yesterday that was described as a "watershed" by one leading lawyer. Other similar claims are now "inevitable", he warned.

Ms McGlone's solicitor, David McKee of Balfour + Manson, said NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde had been made aware of mistakes in her case in early 2008. But he went on: "Ms McGlone has not been offered any reassurance that steps have been taken to investigate and remedy serious failures within its screening programme and she continues to have real concerns about the welfare of any other women who have had smears taken in Glasgow from around 2005 onwards.

"She would like to call for an urgent and thorough investigation into the systematic failures of care that affected her and may have affected other women.

"This includes, if necessary, a recall, of other women whose tests may have been misinterpreted. She hopes this case will go some way towards protecting other young women from the challenges she has faced."

The call for the health board to hold an investigation was backed by Margaret Watt, chairwoman of the Scotland Patients Association.

She said: "They should be going back to make sure that everybody in that particular period is given another test - should they still be alive.

"There might be other people who had tests around that time and maybe they've not been picked up and maybe its still there and maybe it's ten times worse - and they don't know they've got it. This health board has a duty of care to their patients and they should be recalling everybody during that period and getting them checked and double checked, each and every one of them."

Smear tests were carried out on Ms McGlone in 2005 and 2006 in the Sandyford Initiative, a family planning clinic in Glasgow, and she was told they were negative.

Ms McGlone, who has a PhD in particle physics, was working at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland, in 2008 when she had a further smear test and the cancer was detected.

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She claims the illness ended her hopes of a high-earning career as well as her ability to become a mother naturally, and she is seeking compensation of up to 5 million.

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde said the treatment Ms McGlone needed would have been the same even if her condition had been diagnosed earlier.

A spokesman for the board said no other cases were under investigation. She added: "This has been a very unfortunate individual case, but we would like to reassure women that our cervical screening programme is extremely robust."

She said it would be "inappropriate" to make any further comments until the compensation issue was resolved.

Ms McGlone has been clear of the illness for almost three years. The former scientist now volunteers with abandoned and orphaned children overseas, in the developing countries of south-east Asia and Africa.

At the court yesterday, the judge Lord Tyre decided Ms McGlone could have undergone successful, conservative treatment and avoided a hysterectomy if the tests had been correctly interpreted.

His judgment will have a big bearing on the level of damages, which will be assessed at a later hearing.

Patrick McGuire, a partner with leading personal injury law firm Thompsons, said: "This is a case that could truly be described as a watershed case.

"It's one that was very clearly hard-fought by both sides when you look at the number of experts that were called and the level of argument that was undertaken and the very thorough opinion issued by the judge. It's a case that will undoubtedly cause people in similar situations to look at what's happened to them and take advice.

"It's inevitable that where other people have suffered similar medical wrongs, they will seek to obtain just redress."

In order to sue successfully, a patient needs to show a hospital was negligent in the treatment provided - and also that this had a harmful effect on the patient.

Ms McGlone said her qualifications meant she could have pursued a career in banking, earning a substantial salary and bonuses, but she will now not be able to pursue such work.

She had not given up all hope of becoming a mother.

Mr McKee said: "Ms McGlone underwent an urgent IVF cycle in California prior to her treatment, so that surrogacy will be an option for her in the future. Surrogacy costs have never been recovered in this country before. If they are recovered here, that will set a landmark precedent."

The health board admits negligence in misinterpreting the smear tests. But its lawyers claimed Ms McGlone already had significant invasive cancer and that the treatment would have been the same even if she had been diagnosed earlier.

Lord Tyre, who heard a wealth of expert medical evidence, said it was unlikely that problems Ms McGlone had been experiencing, such as bleeding, were down to cervical cancer. He noted that several ultrasound scans were neutral as to the presence of a tumour of significant size.

Ms McGlone had also undergone colposcopic examinations - the study of the cervix under low-power magnification - by Dr Urszula Bankowska, then a consultant at the Sandyford clinic.Lord Tyre said: "I was impressed by Dr Bankowska, who appeared to me to be a careful and thorough clinician who gave her evidence in a balanced and impartial manner. I am satisfied that when carrying out her colposcopic examinations, she would not have missed a lesion of significant size … I find that no tumour of diameter greater than one centimetre was present … from which it follows that no such tumour was present when the misinterpreted smear test reports were made."

Patrick Soutter, a consultant gynaecologist, testified that a tumour with a diameter not greater than one centimetre could be treated by an operation that did not compromise fertility, although it did create some risk of miscarriage or early delivery in future pregnancies.

Lord Tyre decided such treatment would have been given to Ms McGlone if there had been a correct interpretation of either of her smear tests.

Liesa Spiller, a clinical negligence expert at law firm Drummond Miller, played down the prospect of a rush of similar claims. She said: "This doesn't open any floodgates. The doors that you have to get through for a claim remain the same. They have remained the same for many many years."