Morecambe boy’s brush with death after diabetes blunder

[Northerner]

A 14-year-old boy is lucky to be alive after his diabetes symptoms were not spotted by a GP surgery’s receptionist.

Owen Woodhouse was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes by Royal Lancaster Infirmary (RLI) doctors after he was rushed in by his parents.

And they were told he would probably not have survived the further two days until his scheduled GP appointment.

Owen’s mum Dawn rang Coastal Medical Group (CMG) in Morecambe after recognising her son’s symptoms.

She said: “He felt weak, he was going to the toilet a lot, he had lost his appetite and was losing weight. He lost a stone in five days.

http://www.lancasterguardian.co.uk/...h-with-death-after-diabetes-blunder-1-6537368

What's a receptionist doing making clinical decisions? Thank heavens they didn't wait!

 

[Pumper_Sue]

If the mother thought it was diabetes why didn't she go straight to hospital with him?
The blame culture stinks in this country.

 

[Redkite]

When I made my son's appointment we had to wait two days as well - I had a horrid feeling it could be diabetes but (a) didn't want to believe it, and (b) had no idea how serious it could be, ie. fatal. Things can go from "not right" to dangerously ill in a scarily short timespan . Perhaps doctors' receptionists should have more awareness of the potential seriousness of such symptoms, but they can't really be blamed.

 

[Sally71]

We had a similar situation, I suspected diabetes but kept hoping that I might be wrong and that there might be a simpler explanation. Also I tend to be a worrier and thought that I might be assuming the worst as I tend to do where my daughter is concerned! I think I will always regret that I didn't kick up more fuss and insist that we got seen sooner. But at the time the decline had been very gradual and I thought oh well what difference does a couple more days make. Receptionist said that possible diabetes didn't need an emergency appointment; had I known then what I know now I would have set her straight very quickly!

GP did urine test which was apparently normal 😱 and I could tell he thought I was being neurotic, luckily though he did admit that he wouldn't be doing his job properly if he didn't investigate those symptoms and referred her for a blood test. Again there was a delay (he said it had to be a fasting test) and again I will always regret not arguing but I was not certain enough about whether I was right or what the correct procedure should be. And still the decline was very slow until the day of the blood test and then she started to go downhill very fast, DKA starting I guess. By the time GP called us back the next morning my daughter was so weak she could hardly stand up and it was then obvious to me what the diagnosis was going to be, I think the GP had a bigger shock than I did! Another urine test that day was loaded with sugar and ketones (less than a week after the first one!), fingerprick test just said HI, fasting blood glucose had been 18. We were then referred straight to hospital. Just in the nick of time in the end. Hospital lab test showed BG to be 46.

DSN told us that more education needs to be done with GPs because the see almost exclusively type 2s, type 1 is rare. What GP did for us was correct for diagnosing type 2 in an adult but for a young child with type 1 he should have just done a fingerprick test and referred her straight to hospital for more tests. It seems GPs (and their receptionists) don't seem to realise that a young child will probably be type 1 and that comes on much more quickly and can be life threatening if nothing is done quickly. DSN also said that there are about 2,000 new cases of T1 every year across the country, but there are many more GPs than that so some GPs might go through their whole career without ever diagnosing a new case of T1!