No failings in a diagnosis of conjunctivitis

Summary 183 |

Mrs L complained that an out–of–hours doctor failed to examine her eye and unreasonably misdiagnosed the cause of her symptoms.


What happened

Mrs L attended an emergency and urgent care centre in the summer of 2013 because of a red, swollen and painful eye. A doctor diagnosed conjunctivitis and prescribed her an antibiotic cream.

Mrs L's eye remained very painful and she visited her optician 19 days later. The optician made an urgent referral to Moorfields Eye Hospital and Mrs L attended its A&E department the same day. The eye hospital diagnosed Mrs L with an exposed calcific band keratopathy (a growth on the eye) and this was scraped and removed. Mrs L returned to A&E a week later and it was noted that the problem on her eye had healed and she was comfortable.

What we found

We found that the out–of–hours doctor recorded a reasonable history when he saw Mrs L. There was also evidence that he examined Mrs L's eye, although she disputes this took place. Overall, we found that the doctor made a reasonable diagnosis based on Mrs L's presenting symptoms and so we did not uphold the complaint.

Health or Parliamentary
Health
Organisations we investigated

Partnership of East London Co-operatives

Location

Greater London

Complainants' concerns ?

Did not apologise properly or do enough to put things right

Did not take sufficient steps to improve service

Result

Not applicable