An organisation which offers doctors legal advice has found that the number of complaints about out-of-hours care has risen by more than half.

The Medical Defence Union (MDU) says that it recorded 517 complaints about out-of-hours care in the year 2007-08, compared with just 337 in the year 2005-06.

The Press Association reports that the number of claims for compensation arising from complaints about out-of-hours care also rose from 41 claims in 2005-06, to 73 compensation claims in 2007-08.

Researchers found that the increase in compensation claims was caused mainly by delays in diagnosing conditions – or failure to diagnose a condition – with 120 (23 per cent) of additional claims related to a delay or failure in diagnosis which in most cases led to the condition becoming more severe.

In 52 claims for compensation relating to delay or failure to diagnose a condition, doctors allegedly failed to diagnose a heart attack – or misdiagnosed serious conditions such as septicaemia, pneumonia or meningitis.

A total of 75 (15 per cent) complaints about doctors related to the death of a patient, which resulted in a total of 17 claims for compensation relating to the death of patients.

Patients also complained about the attitude or manner of a doctor treating them, with 71 (14 per cent) complaining that a doctors was ‘offhand’, ‘rude’, or acted ‘in an uncaring way’.

A total of 19 complaints related to assessments of a condition made over the telephone. The researchers cited the case of a doctor who issued a prescription for stomach ache to a patient without visiting them – and the patient went on to develop appendicitis.

Head of risk management at the MDU, Dr Stephen Green said:

‘Compared to the many millions of patients who are seen out-of-hours each year, the number of complaints notified to us by our members is small.

‘However, out-of-hours care continues to represent a significant and growing proportion of the complaints we see.’

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