Beggs demands answers on patient recall

Ulster Unionist Health Spokesperson, Roy Beggs MLA, has said urgent answers are needed as to why it took the Belfast Health Trust so long to order a patient recall.

Roy Beggs said:

“The announcement by the Belfast Health Trust will be worrying for every single patient and family who have been affected.

“Serious questions need to be asked as to why exactly it has taken so long to get to this stage. Concerns about the standard of diagnosis and treatments were first raised over 16 months ago and the consultant in question has not been seeing any patients since last June. It seems inexplicable to me therefore that it’s taken almost a further year for the review to conclude and for his previous patients to be told that they have potentially been misdiagnosed.

“There is a very real possibility that some patients may have been misdiagnosed and have still been receiving the wrong treatment over all this time. Whilst I really hope it hasn’t happened, I fear that some patients may have come to some harm in the intervening period. Why has it taken so long before patients have been contacted?

“The absolute priority now must be to expedite the case reviews of all the patients involved. I’m glad that extra clinics are being organised, but the simple reality is it should never have taken this long. Lessons need learnt to reduce the likelihood of this happening again and to speed up the review process.”

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