Pause to A&G expansion urged over patient safety concerns

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By Emma Wilkinson

Expansion of advice and guidance schemes should be paused while the government undertakes a rapid review of the service, a watchdog has urged after finding patients may be being harmed.

An interim report from the Health Services Safety Investigations Body (HSSIB) found poorly designed or badly monitored A&G pathways have led to delayed and missed diagnoses including in cancer care.

The report flags two cases where patients died while awaiting a specialist response.

One patient with epilepsy had sought help from the GP after repeated seizures. An A&G request to neurology went unanswered for a month so the GP sent an urgent referral request which was also not responded to for more than six weeks.

A coroner raised concerns after the patient died at home following a seizure.

In another example a patient died while awaiting cardiology treatment.

'Longer waits'

HSSIB also pointed to late diagnoses after failures in pathways for specialist guidance in what turned out to be melanoma and endometrial cancer.