Nadine Hopkins was diagnosed with terminal cancer eight months after Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust first found evidence of a liver lesion on a CT scan, reports James Cracknell

Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust and (inset) Nadine Hopkins

An NHS trust has apologised to the family of an Enfield woman who died of cancer a year after doctors failed to investigate a liver lesion picked up on a scan.

Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust conducted an “independent review” of the circumstances leading up to the death of Nadine Hopkins and said it had since made “a number of improvements” to the way it reviews scans and potential cancers.

The 73-year-old, who lived in Valley Fields Crescent, was given a computed tomography (CT) scan in December 2023 at Barnet Hospital, as part of an investigation into a nasal tumour.

Although the scan also picked up the liver lesion, Nadine was not told about this and it wasn’t followed up by doctors – who should have requested a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan to diagnose it.

Instead, Nadine lived unaware of her growing cancer until August 2024, when a consultation at Chase Farm Hospital – also run by Royal Free London – finally confirmed the diagnosis. She died three months later.

The NHS trust claimed the late diagnosis ultimately made no difference to Nadine’s long-term prognosis, but her son Oliver Coombes said this response was “insulting”.

Oliver, who was sent a letter from Royal Free London explaining the error, told the Dispatch: “What I received from them was written in such legal language I didn’t really think it was an apology.

“I found the response insulting. They admitted to a failure of duty of care – that they should have carried out follow-up scans. There is also an insulting implication that if the cancer had been discovered earlier, she would still have died.

“But if she had been told in January 2024, the key difference was that we would have had much longer to prepare for it, rather than three months. So I found it insulting. It is an offensive thing for the NHS to say.”

Oliver continued: “They were meant to follow up my mother’s case and didn’t – by the time they did her condition was terminal. We are told time and time again that getting early scans is key to stopping cancer, but in this case the scans weren’t followed up by the hospital – so what is the point?”

Asked to respond, a Royal Free London spokesperson said: “We would like to reiterate our deepest condolences and apologies to Ms Hopkins’ family for the delay in diagnosing her condition.

“An independent review established that earlier treatment would sadly not have changed the outcome, but we are incredibly sorry for the distress caused by the delay.

“A number of improvements have been made to how we review, and escalate, scans – particularly in relation to suspected cases of cancer.”

Oliver said that he hoped by speaking to the Dispatch about his mother’s late diagnosis, it would encourage others to request scans when needed and then follow them up directly themselves – persistently if necessary.

“I feel I just have to do something for my mother and for there to be some good come out of it – it is a terrible tragedy,” said Oliver.

“I will always blame myself for thinking that no news is good news, instead of calling them up to ask for the CT scan [result]. As my mother’s case demonstrates, we can’t trust the NHS to dot every ‘i’ and cross every ‘t’.

“If someone reading this feels motivated to follow up test results, then I can tell myself something good has come out of it.”

Speaking more about his mother, who before her cancer was a keen supporter of charities such as the RSPCA, Oliver continued: “She was a very kind woman who always went out of her way for people.

“One of the worst things was having to tell all of her friends about what happened. It was only the last month that she realised she was going to die. She was enjoying her retirement, but it was all suddenly taken away from her. She bravely got all her affairs in order but I had to watch her die.

“She showed me the love that a lot of people hadn’t shown her when she was growing up. She was a wonderful mother. She was always there for me.”

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