Damages for breast cancer failure

High Court awarded damages

A man has won £111,400 damages against a GP over his failure to refer his late wife for a specialist's opinion about a breast lump.

Anthony Rose had sued GP Dr Alan Duke in the High Court following the death of his wife Jean from breast cancer in September 1996.

Mrs Rose, a designer and lecturer with her own dressmaking business, had told Dr Duke three years before her death that she had found a lump in her breast.

Nothing can bring her back

Anthony Rose

Judge Elizabeth Stee said it was no part of Mr Rose's case that the failure to identify the lump, when the GP saw his wife at the health centre in Ramsey, Cambridgeshire, in August 1993, was negligent.

But it was claimed that Dr Duke, who has since retired, should have referred Mrs Rose for specialist opinion.

If he had, said the judge, Mrs Rose's condition would have been detected by mid-September 1993 and she would have had the chance of at least another 10 years of life.

Family history of cancer

The judge found that Dr Duke, who denied negligence, should have referred Mrs Rose for further investigation after she told him about the lump and her mother and aunt's history of breast cancer.

She also found that the failure to refer caused injury as, in September 1993, Mrs Rose's tumour was grade three but of a size towards the lower end of the agreed range and had not spread to her lymph nodes.

After the judge's ruling, Mrs Rose's counsel, Jane Tracy Forster, said damages had been agreed at £111,400 with costs, which could be up to £50,000, to be assessed.

Dr Duke, who was supported by the Medical Defence Union, was not in court.

Mr Rose, of Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, said: "This case was initially brought by Jean just before her death. I promised her I would do all necessary to see it through and prove the GP's failure.

"Had he referred Jean to a hospital in 1993 when she first noticed the lump it is likely Jean would still be alive today."

He said the case had not been for any gain, but for what he and his sons, 22-year-old James and Alexander, 20, had lost - "a wonderful wife, a caring and devoted mother".

"Nothing can bring her back," he said.