This investigation found that the system for communicating with patients on healthcare waiting lists is in ‘disarray’, and concluded that significant and repeated failures across the system amounted to ‘systemic maladministration’.
It urged the Department of Health to work with Health Trusts, GPs and others to address the failings.
We found that failures in the care and treatment of a patient by a GP Practice had no impact on the prognosis or outcome, but had they not occurred it may have been possible for the patient to have received an earlier diagnosis.