A woman from the Hunter region faced a potentially life-altering delay after a positive bowel screening test result went unreported for five months.
A Critical Communication Breakdown
The woman recorded a positive result in October last year but was not informed until a routine GP visit in late February this year. According to her account, when she finally learned of the result, her GP allegedly stated, "you didn't ring and follow up the results." The patient countered, explaining she believed the practice would contact her with any significant findings.
The situation took a serious turn when a colonoscopy arranged the following week detected bowel cancer. The woman underwent surgery for stage two cancer and has since recovered. She undertook the screening test through her local GP, not via the national program that automatically sends kits to Australians over 50.
Medical and Legal Duty to Follow Up
Dr Max Mollenkopf, the Hunter representative for the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, emphasised that the duty of care rests firmly with medical practitioners. "Speaking generally, GPs and clinicians who order tests have a medical and legal responsibility to follow up on the results of tests," Dr Mollenkopf said.
He stressed that telling a patient follow-up is their responsibility is not acceptable. "You can't tell a patient it's on them. That's one that is always coming back to you," he explained. Even if patients are advised to call for results, a clinician's obligation extends beyond that instruction.
Dr Mollenkopf outlined standard practice procedures, which typically involve attempting to contact a patient on three separate occasions for a significant result. If that fails, practices are required to send a registered letter to the patient's address.
A Warning to the Public
The woman, who chose to remain anonymous, shared her story to raise public awareness. "Luckily I had the best outcome," she said. "My concern is, a lot of people are not aware that they may have to ring up and get results."
She questioned whether pressure on the healthcare system contributed to the lapse. "There seems to be a huge gap in communication between some surgeries and their patients," she said, pondering if clinics are "too busy to ring patients these days."
While Dr Mollenkopf acknowledged such a significant failure would be "extremely rare" and more likely an "aberrance than a systemic failure," he confirmed that having a clear results-handling procedure is a part of general practice accreditation. He also clarified that a positive test for faecal blood, which indicates potential bowel cancer, is always treated as a clinically significant result requiring urgent follow-up.
