Man's plea after wife's 'cancer not found for year'

A man whose wife died after hospital failings led to a year's delay in a diagnosis of cervical cancer, is calling for lessons to be learned.

Mother-of-three Kerry Pugh, 48, from Shrewsbury, died following the diagnosis delay, having been incorrectly told a suspicious smear test was normal, legal firm Irwin Mitchell said.

Husband Stephen is using Cervical Cancer Prevention Week to highlight potential difficulties other patients in need of similar diagnoses might face.

University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust (UHNM) said it had apologised and no longer operated "this screening service".

In the wake of Pugh's death, Irwin Mitchell said it was "in the process of negotiating a financial compensation package with the NHS trust who are responsible".

Pugh, who died in June 2022, had attended hospital to undergo cervical screening after years of symptoms including bleeding.

The smear showed severe cell changes, but she was told the results were normal, Irwin Mitchell explained.

It led to her not being referred for specialist examination, which would have diagnosed stage one cancer and enabled her to undergo a potentially life-saving hysterectomy.

It was not until about 18 months later that Pugh was diagnosed, after the cervical cancer was then at stage four, the legal firm said.

Asked what he would like to see changed, Pugh's husband said: "There's quite a few things that could probably change.

"But obviously test results, to double check 'em, make sure they're accurate and maybe get 'em looked at by other people as well... for more people to look at 'em."

He also said: "I'd still advise anyone to go for the smear tests.

"If you don't go for the smear tests, you could end up in the same position as Kerry."

Irwin Mitchell said UHNM, which analysed Pugh's smear test, "admitted care failings in incorrectly reporting the results as normal, which resulted in her not being referred to specialists for an earlier diagnosis and potentially life-saving surgery".

She had first attended a routine cervical cancer screening appointment, in June 2018.

She had then continued to complain of symptoms, but it was only after further GP appointments in November 2019 that saw her referred back to hospital, the legal firm said. Following a biopsy, she was diagnosed with cancer.

Eleanor Giblin, the specialist medical negligence lawyer representing Stephen Pugh, told the BBC: "I think it's important to say it's really rare for a screening programme to fail in the way that it did with Kerry.

"So in most cases cervical cancer is diagnosed early and that's the whole point of the screening process."

Trust chief executive Dr Simon Constable said: "We have apologised to Mr Pugh and his family that the standard of reporting failed to meet that which the trust strives to provide.

"We recognise the importance of learning from mistakes of this nature and while UHNM no longer operates this screening service, we will do all we can to learn from this incident in relation to our wider laboratory services."

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