"Appalling care for my dad"

In a brief summary Dad was misdiagnosed from the beginning from his GP not referring him via 2 week rule after presenting with dysphagia at the first sign in September 2017, to only being diagnosed with oesophageal cancer on his 3rd endoscopy with a 65mm adenocarcinoma of the Oesophageal Junction- 8 months after going to the GP in the meantime losing over 4 stone and not being able to eat solid food for over 5 months. But the GP said he lost no weight. Referral sent to the wrong team at the hospital and was called the day of his appointment blaming the hospital and not the GP.

With multiple test in that time under a consultant surgeon (who referred to a previous scar as being done by ‘big cut doctor’ who also had a hernia which did him ‘no harm’)   such as: Ultrasound thyroid,   CT scan of Abdo, Pelvis (not including thorax), 2 poorly tolerated endoscopies, on the second to be told Barrett’s oesophagus with no dysplasia, 5 cm hiatus hernia, manometry & a barium swallow. To then be referred to another consultant as it ‘didn’t add up’. To then being stuck on ward 36 in Arrowe park from the beginning of April 2018 after the 3rd endoscopy until the beginning of June 2018 with no cancer treatment just on TPN because of malnutrition.

After 7 UPGI MDTs (which were every Tuesday and no cancer specialist actually involved with dad) to be told conflicting stories from each meeting by the specialist nurses & doctors such as ‘the cancer is in your lung -palliative care only ’ to which dad asked this Doctor could it just be an infection from pneumonia at Christmas to which he was told ‘no absolutely not it would of been on February scan I’ve been over it with a fine toothed comb’ to another dr saying ‘the ct scan doesn’t show that area of the lung’ another dr saying ‘actually the lung biopsy says it’s not’ ‘oh but the doctor doesn’t believe that as it could be a false negative’ (shame they didn’t use that idea for the first endoscopy) ‘there is no hospital to accommodate your operation’ ‘you won’t be treated by an oncologist while your lying in a hospital bed’ to go home on TPN for the surgeon to say they didn’t like that plan. To go to another hospital (on day release) for the oncologist to say he was too unwell for chemotherapy due to his liver being damaged by the TPN which was suddenly changed to liver friendly TPN.

He also apparently died while he was there as we received his medical notes with a letter to his GP to say he had died on the ward? ! ? !   Unfortunately due to the cancer being allowed to have a 10 month head-start without any cancer treatment, he is now stage 4 and is terminal. We have raised this with pals twice while dad was an inpatient who then told us to put it in writing (by the way they were useless to us) No help at all. We’ve had meeting with the Chief excecutive, medical director, head of gastroenterology. And not one can admit that his care was unacceptable or explain why he was misdiagnosed. I am also under the care of gastroenterology at Arrowe Park and have no faith in them at all. No family should have to go through this I'm disgusted. It needs to change. I will continue to raise awareness for oesophageal cancer and how poor my dad’s care was.