Decision Report 201802288

Summary

Mrs C complained about the treatment which her late husband (Mr A) received during attendances at the out-of-hours service at the Vale of Leven Hospital. Mr  A had attended on three occasions over a period of 15 months with chest pains and numbness, where staff repeatedly told him he had a trapped nerve and prescribed painkillers. Mr A subsequently died of a heart attack a month following the last hospital attendance. Mrs C felt that the board had not carried out sufficient examinations to have ruled out the possibility of Mr A having heart disease.

We took independent advice from a GP adviser. We found that the GPs who saw Mr A had carried out appropriate assessments and obtained a reasonable history based on his reported symptoms. It was reasonable that the GPs had each arrived at a working diagnosis of musculoskeletal symptoms as a result of a trapped nerve. There also was no clinical evidence that Mr A required to be referred to a hospital specialism, such as cardiology (the area of medicine which deals with the heart and circulatory system). We did not uphold the complaint.