Clayhill Medical Practice, Vange Health Centre, Southview Road, Vange in Basildon, Essex has been rated as inadequate by the Care Quality Commission.
The practice has more than 6,000 patients and has been ordered to improve by the health watchdog.
Some performance information which includes screening data was lower than local and national averages, and some childhood immunisation data was lower than target levels, and there have been numerous patients that have left the practice over a period of time, and a father died two days after being told by the GP the stroke he suffered was a bout of vertigo.
The widow called an out of hours doctor who diagnosed her stroke victim husband with vertigo over the telephone and escaped being struck off. Dr Francisca Ogunbiyi twice refused to attend Jeffrey Wingrove, 48, after he collapsed at home with severe vomiting and paralysing headaches, and instead decided he was suffering from vertigo and prescribed some anti-sickness medicines for his wife, Isabelle to get. Mr Wingrove who was the father of two and ran marathons died 48 hours later.
His family have since been awarded a six-figure sum in an out-of-court settlement for clinical negligence against the family doctor and East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust, and Nigerian-trained Francisca Ogunbiyi could have been struck off by the General Medical Council, which heard Mr Wingrove would have survived if his stroke had been diagnosed quicker.
But instead of Ogunbiyi being struck off she was given a warning, which she then had to declare to her employers over the course of the next five years, but she appealed against the decision, which was upheld during a five hour hearing in London.
The point is that had Dr Ogunbiyi executed her job correctly and she had given him the medical care that he required he probably would have survived, but instead this poor man died and his family were left to pick up the pieces, so it does make you question why Francisca Ogunbiyi only got away with a warning and continued to be able to work.
Not only has she taken the life of a patient, but she’s further taken this man away from his family, and the system has failed.
Mr Wingrove fell unwell on the morning of December 9, 2006, at home in Braintree, Essex, after going to the bathroom and collapsing in horrifying pain. He managed to drag himself to his bedroom with a severe headache but was powerless to move the right side of his body easily and was sweating and vomiting.
His wife contacted her GP and was directed to an out of hours service run by the Mid Essex Hospitals NHS Trust by a private firm Primecare because it was a Saturday. Doctor Ogunbiyi called Mrs Wingrove shortly afterwards and told her to take her husband to Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford, Essex.
There was a disturbing exchanged that was presented during the hearing. Mrs Wingrove who at 5ft tall was 1ft shorter than her husband, again asked for the doctor to come and see her husband because she couldn’t get him out of bed to get him to the hospital.
But Doctor Ogunbiyi told Mrs Wingrove that she would have to get him out of bed. Mrs Wingrove then rang NHS Direct and a nurse told her to demand a home visit from a doctor as soon as possible.
At 12.20pm she called Primecare again but was informed by the doctor that NHS Direct was different there, and that she could insist and they could jump up and down but that they knew the system and it wasn’t fair on her.
Mrs Wingrove said: ‘You’re telling me I cannot get a doctor here? I cannot get him out.’ The GP responded: ‘You’re shouting.’
At about 9 pm Mrs Wingrove called paramedics who also said her husband was suffering from vertigo when they arrived, gave him paracetamol and failed to take him to the hospital.
The next morning Mr Wingrove fell off his bed and was then taken to Broomfield Hospital, he was later transferred to Queen’s Hospital in Romford where he died the following day.
Francisca Ogunbiyi, who lives in Benfleet, Essex, and works at Vange Health Centre in Basildon, was dismissed by Primecare following the misfortune, and she was unavailable for comment following the hearing.
Doctor Ogunbiyi was dismissive, and even though it’s really difficult for the medical profession to make judgement calls, she should have sent him straight to hospital, and it appears that the paramedics that did turn up, in the end, failed to recognise the severity of Mr Wingrove’s health when they arrived at his home and actually saw him.
We don’t need slothful doctors, and it seems like she simply couldn’t be bothered to do a home visit or even ring for an ambulance, and simply fobbed Mrs Wingrove off.
The paramedics were probably following the doctor’s diagnosis, however not taking him to the hospital was an absolute disgrace. They’re not fully qualified medics and should always consider the worst diagnosis.
Very clearly this gentleman was presenting vital signs of a heart problem or even a stroke, I mean, us lesser mortals have that pounded into us by the government’s ad campaign on TV all the time.
Mr Wingrove should have been examined at the hospital, if only as a precautionary measure, but the out of hours service in this country is diabolical, and because of this Mr Wingrove’s family had to say goodbye to him.
So many people have been hurt by this incident, yet Francisca Ogunbiyi gets off with a warning and is still licenced to practice at being a doctor, and it’s a disgrace.
Sadly, there have been many other comparable things that have happened in the NHS, such as a locum giving painkillers to someone with chest pain, and then the patient dies 2 days later, or a woman with bowel cancer who’s told that she has IBS. Or the young man with testicular cancer who’s told the lump is nothing to worry about until he goes to A&E coughing up blood or the woman who’s told that her brain haemorrhage was nothing more than a migraine. Perhaps we should simply bypass our GP, except for the pretty minor stuff and just go straight to A&E because it could SAVE your life.
I question what a doctor has to actually do before they’re struck off because it seems that being too lazy to do a proper job which then leads to a patients death actually isn’t enough.
