![]() In December, the ombudsman rejected the action plan presented by the trust as effectively unfit for purpose and said it could lead to the same “failings” recurring. We do not underestimate what difference an earlier diagnosis would have made.” The ombudsman ordered the trust to give Mrs Seifert-Speck a £3,750 financial payout and said that it must carry out an overhaul in its procedures for Kuttner’s and for complaints handling. “We are incredibly sorry for what happened. Subscribe here for the latest news where you live We recognise what a terrible time this must have been. Mr Speck was instead left in pain, trying to access help for a condition he was clearly very concerned about and with very little time to make necessary arrangements. ![]() “We also think he would have had more time to put his affairs in order and say goodbye to those closest to him. This would have meant Mr Speck and those close to him had a less distressing experience. “We think Mr Speck could have received palliative care and support as well as the medical management of his symptoms had the failings we have found not happened. "We think at the very least Mr Speck’s final weeks and months would have been better managed and less painful had these failings not taken place. There was a small but tangible possibility he would have survived had the failings we have found not happened. A report from the watchdog detailed: “The trust missed several opportunities to diagnose Mr Speck’s cancer sooner. When approached for comment, the hospital trust offered its “heartfelt condolences” to Mrs Seifert-Speck, said that it took her concerns seriously and apologised for taking longer than it would like to handle her complaints. The ombudsman detailed that Mr Speck’s cancer could have been diagnosed by the trust as early as October 10, 2018, 155 days (five months) before it was eventually diagnosed on March 13, 2019, Derbyshire Live reports. In August, the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman offered a scathing critique of the “failures” in care provided to Mr Speck and the handling of complaints led by Mrs Seifert-Speck by the University Hospitals of Derby and Burton NHS Foundation Trust. However, four years on from Mr Speck’s death and eight months after being ordered to carry out a major overhaul of its complaints handling and procedures for possible Kuttner’s diagnoses, the city’s hospital trust continues not to have taken sufficient action, according to a healthcare watchdog. His heartbroken widow, Anna Seifert-Speck, aged 58, has fought for the past four years to see her husband’s experience lead to an improved approach to tackling the common misdiagnosis of cancer as Kuttner’s, a rare benign (non harmful) tumour that is hard to distinguish from a malignant (active) tumour. Simon Speck died aged 55 on April 19, 2019, just 38 days after he was found to have a rare and extremely aggressive cancer. A beloved father and university lecturer might have survived if a hospital trust had not missed several opportunities to diagnose his cancer, an investigation has found.
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