Bowel Cancer and medical negligence: Understanding your legal rights

What is Bowel Cancer?

Cancer that affects the large bowel is typically called bowel cancer. You may also hear it being called colorectal cancer, colon cancer or rectum cancer, depending on where it is found.

Most bowel cancers develop from polyps which are non-cancerous growths that might develop into cancer. Cancer cells may stay in the bowel or they might spread to other parts of the body, such as the liver or lungs.

Symptoms of Bowel Cancer

Symptoms of bowel cancer can often be mistaken for symptoms of other conditions.

Common symptoms include:

• Bleeding from your bottom
• Blood in your stool
• A change in your pooing habits including going more or less often, or having diarrhoea or constipation
• Unexplained weight loss
• Tiredness/fatigue
• A pain or a lump in your stomach

Causes and risk factors

 Risk factors can include age, with nine out of ten of new cases (94%) diagnosed in people over the age of 50. However, more than 2,600 new cases are diagnosed in people under the age of 50 every year.

Other risk facts include obesity, eating processed meat, alcohol, smoking and eating too little fibre.

Diagnosis of bowel cancer

Bowel cancer is the fourth most common cancer in the UK. Almost 44,000 people are diagnosed with bowel cancer every year in the UK.

1 in 17 men and 1 in 20 women will be diagnosed with bowel cancer during their lifetime.

According to Bowel Cancer UK 54% of bowel cancer cases in the UK are preventable.

Importance of timely detection

More than 9 in 10 people will survive bowel cancer if diagnosed at the earliest stage (stage 1) whereas around 1 in 10 people will survive bowel cancer if diagnosed at the latest stage (stage 4).

This means a timely diagnosis of bowel cancer is crucial – it directly impacts the chances of successful treatment, survival rates and overall prognosis.

There is a bowel cancer screening programme in the UK for people without symptoms. If you do have symptoms, go to see your GP. They may give you an at-home test, known as symptomatic FIT.

Challenges in early diagnosis

Bowel cancer is often misdiagnosed as a less serious illness or recognised at a point where it cannot be cured.

Screening is one of the best ways to detect bowel cancer at an early stage before symptoms appear. Yet the recommended screening programmes are not offered due to lack of staff within endoscopy and pathology services that diagnose bowel cancer. People are also waiting too long for crucial bowel cancer tests as there is a lack of capacity to meet demand.

Diagnostic procedures and tests

If your GP suspects your symptoms may be bowel cancer they may undertake the following tests:

• A test that looks for tiny traces of blood in a sample of poo (FIT)
• An examination of your back passage (rectum) and back passage opening (anus)
• An examination of your stomach (abdomen)
• Blood tests

Depending on the results of your examination your GP might refer you to a specialist for further tests.

The main test for bowel cancer is a colonoscopy. This is a where a thin, flexible tube with a camera is used to look inside your bowel. During the colonoscopy, a small sample of the lining of your bowel may be taken for testing – called a biopsy.

Tests may also include scans to look at your bowel. These might be a CT colonography or a CT scan of your stomach and pelvis.

If you have a biopsy that shows you have bowel cancer, you may have to have more tests to work out where and how big the cancer is, including:

• Tests on your bowel cancer cells
• CT scans
• PET-CT scans
• MRS scan of your pelvis or liver
• Ultrasound scan of your stomach or rectum

Medical negligence in bowel cancer cases

Common examples of medical negligence in bowel cancer cases can include:

Delayed diagnosis

This could occur if:

1. There is a failure to refer urgent cases quickly enough
2. Symptoms consistent with bowel cancer are ignored
3. The correct tests are not requested when symptoms indicate possible bowel cancer
4. Test or scan results are misinterpreted
5. Test results or abnormal findings are not followed up or communicated

A delayed diagnosis can mean that the disease spreads to other parts of your body, making it more difficult to treat; you require different or more treatment; and / or that your prognosis is poorer.

Bowel cancer misdiagnosis leading to the wrong treatment

This could occur if a patient is incorrectly diagnosed with another condition (e.g. Irritable Bowel Syndrome, haemorrhoids or piles) and is given the wrong treatment, such as a course of antibiotics rather than cancer treatment.

Avoidable complications during treatment or care, such as:

1. Delays in beginning chemotherapy
2. Failure to adequately discuss the risks associated with a particular chemotherapy drug, leading to complications

Eligibility for making a claim for bowel cancer misdiagnosis

Medical negligence occurs when a patient suffers harm or injury as a result of substandard care in a healthcare setting.

Medial negligence claims have strict time limits. If your case relates to a delayed bowel cancer diagnosis or bowel cancer misdiagnosis, this is 3 years from when you were informed of the correct diagnosis. If your case relates to errors relating to treatment, this is likely to be 3 years from the date of the error.

Steps involved in the claims process

Medical negligence claims are technical and complex – this is why you should seek advice from a specialist medical negligence lawyer. It will be almost impossible to navigate the process on your own.

If you would like to understand more, read here: "Bringing a medical negligence claim" 

Compensation

Claiming compensation can help provide the care and support that you need.

The amount of compensation you can obtain can vary widely depending on the specific circumstances of your case.

As well as receiving compensation for the physical and psychological consequences of any negligence, you will be able to recover specific financial losses incurred as a result of the negligence. This could include loss of earnings, care, medical treatment and other miscellaneous costs resulting from the negligence.

Seeking support for a medical negligence claim is a significant and often challenging step. This is why we are here to listen to you and talk through what happened, and to help and guide you every step of the way.