Dependence on locum consultants blamed for cancer misdiagnosis crisis

A SYSTEM-WIDE dependency on locum consultants who are not staff hospital employees is behind the latest cancer misdiagnosis crisis in the north- east, it has been claimed.

Leaked information from the inquiry, to be published at the end of this month, into more than 6,000 chest X-rays and 70 CT scans in Drogheda and Navan between August 2006 and August 2007 has stated that “hundreds” of mistakes were made by locum radiologist Dr James Murray at the facilities.

The inquiry, launched in May after it emerged that four patients initially given the all-clear were subsequently told they had lung cancer and died, is reputedly also due to confirm nine more patients could be facing the same fate.