A doctor who failed to diagnose a 25-year-old saleswoman with cervical cancer is facing being struck off.

The Daily Mail reports that Nikki Sams begged Luton-based GP Dr Nakin Shankar for a hospital check up – but he failed to perform an abdominal or internal examination or refer her to Luton & Dunstable Hospital.

Dr Shankar treated Ms Sams at the Wigmore Lane Health Centre between 1999 and 2005, but failed to diagnose cervical cancer eight times in four years.

Ms Sams was diagnosed when she was allocated another GP, after Dr Shankar was suspended over an unrelated case of serious misconduct. Her new GP ordered a cervical smear test immediately, but despite undergoing a hysterectomy and cancer treatment, Ms Sams died a year later at the age of 26.

Her father Michael Sams, 54 – a single parent with another daughter – gave up work to care for Nikki and told a hearing of the General Medical Council (GMC) that he blamed her death on ‘a catalogue of unforgivable errors’.

'It is unbelievable that in this day and age a girl can go to her doctor so many times complaining about all these symptoms and be sent away and told not to worry.

'I don't understand how you can exhibit these symptoms for so long and they not be picked up until it's too late,’ he said.

Dr Shankar appeared before the GMC last week – the hearing was adjourned to allow the council to conduct a performance assessment.

Other complaints against Dr Shankar are already on record, however – in September 2005, he was found guilty of serious professional misconduct when he failed to diagnose a blocked artery in a baby and then forged related medical notes. He was banned until January 2008, when he was allowed to return to unrestricted practice.

The GMC heard that he had also failed to keep ‘adequate records’ of the symptoms Ms Sams had reported to him over the years.

After diagnosis and treatment, she was at one stage given the all-clear from cancer and returned to work – but doctors discovered secondary cancers after she was involved in a car accident.

Her father said he never told his daughter her cancer was terminal so she never gave up hope of recovery. Ms Sams died in August 2007.

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