A HEARTBROKEN mum whose daughter died of cancer believes she may still be alive if GPs had seen her face to face.
Doctors who didn’t see Jessica Brady, 27, in person for five months amid Covid fears last year failed to spot her tumour.
Jessica, from Stevenage, Hertfordshire, died from stage four cancer in December.
Her Mum, Andrea, told MPs her daughter “really did attribute her late diagnosis to the slow reaction of her GP surgery”.
It comes as figures show a third fewer people in England are seeing GPs than before the pandemic, with tens of millions of lost appointments.
Speaking to the Health and Social Care Committee, Andrea said: “We feel, and Jess felt that no one listened.
CANCER TRAGEDY
“No one took it seriously and more than anything, she needed a permitted face-to-face appointment really early on, with people making notes.”
She added: “No one person was looking at the whole picture and putting the pieces of the jigsaw together.”
Jessica was repeatedly denied in-person appointments despite complaining of abdominal pain since last summer.
She was diagnosed with a kidney infection and given antibiotics during virtual appointments.
But blood tests revealed Jessica had high D-dimer levels, which can be a warning of cancer.
Doctors realised it was cancer until five months later when it had spread around Jessica’s body and become untreatable.
She was finally seen in person by a GP after calling her local surgery more than 20 times.
After seeking private health care Jessica was diagnosed with stage four cancer of the lungs, bones, spine and liver.
She went to hospital that day, but died three and a half weeks later on December 20.
Health Secretary Sajid Javid today warned GPs to give more face to face appointments.
He told MPs “everyone can understand” why doctors couldn’t see patients in person during the pandemic.
But he said “we are way past that now” and added “‘we intend to do a lot more about it”.
Responding to Jessica’s case, Dr Richard Roope, clinical adviser for cancer at the Royal College of General Practitioners, told MPs: “In general practice we talk about learning events and this is the mother of all learning events.
“To state obvious, no GP gets up in morning to miss a diagnosis.
“We are there to help our patients and to enable access to the best treatment and diagnostics in a timely fashion and I think we can do things better than what has happened.”
