A FIFE medical practice is to apologise to the family of a man who died the day after he attempted to speak with his doctor.

The brother of the deceased made a complaint to the Ombudsman who recently published their findings.

The man, known only as Mr A, had been suffering from a cough, shortness of breath and chest pain and in April 2014 died of a pulmonary thromboembolism – a blood clot that detaches and reattaches at another point in a patient’s circulatory system.

Mr C, the man’s brother, said that he believed the practice had contributed to his sibling’s death.

In his complaint, Mr C claimed that the GP did not treat Mr A’s condition as worsening on his final visit to the practice. He also said that on the day before his brother’s death, a receptionist had not allowed Mr A to speak to, or see, a GP when he called to get the results of tests.

Despite his complaint, Mr C was unhappy with the response he received claiming inaccuracies and errors. He questioned why the GP had not considered or recognised that his brother’s condition was deteriorating and the contents of a phonecall with a receptionist were disputed.

The Ombudsman took advice from medical advisers who found that the medical records showed a series of events consistent with a chest infection along with other signs that needed further investigation. Tests had been arranged for this purpose and Mr C’s complaint about his brother’s treatment was not upheld. The advisers did report, however, that the role of reception staff should be to facilitate communication between a patient and a GP, therefore they should not be making a decision that a patient who wants to speak to a GP should not have this option. The complaint about the care given to Mr A by the practice was upheld.

The Ombudsman set out some recommendations for the practice and they must now: - Carry out a significant event analysis paying attention to the system of contacting on-call doctors.

- Apologise to Mr C for the failings identified.

- Establish which receptionist spoke to Mr A.

- Review and revise the system for passing requests by patients to speak to a doctor.

- Consider enhanced staff training for receptionists in terms of patient interaction and requests to speak to doctors.