Referral confusion over incidental scan findings ‘putting patients at risk’

Getty/georgeclerk

By Erin Dean

Patients could be put at risk by a hospital’s “long-standing failure” to identify which doctor is responsible for following up incidental findings in scans, a coroner has warned.

A woman’s lung cancer diagnosis was delayed by a year after no referral was made to investigate a suspicious lung nodule picked up on a scan ordered by the emergency department (ED).

Coroner Laurinda Bower criticised Nottingham University Hospital NHS Trust for the lack of a clear policy on medical responsibility for referrals from incidental ED scan findings – and pointed out she flagged similar concerns from another death earlier this year.

In the prevention of future deaths (PFD) report she said: “The risk of incidental imaging findings being overlooked has been known about by NUH for years and appears on the trust’s risk register.

“There has been a long-standing failure to adequately mitigate this risk, and there is ongoing dispute about who is responsible for actioning incidental imaging findings.”