Mum of three misdiagnosed by her GP over the phone dies just weeks later

A mum-of-three who was misdiagnosed over the phone by was “failed” by doctors, her heartbroken husband has said.

Laura Barlow first became seriously ill in October 2023, with pain in her abdominal region and blood in her stool, her husband Mike recalled. He said a brief phone call with her GP at Stickney Surgery resulted in the endometriosis diagnosis.

She was prescribed pain medication which kept her going until mid-December, when she collapsed at her work as a housekeeper at in Lincolnshire, Mike said.

“I picked her up and took her straight to the doctors,” said Mike, who works as a porter at the same hospital. "We were sent to urgent care. She got poorlier and poorlier and was given morphine.

“By the time they called her name, the morphine had kicked in and she was in less pain. And the doctor [who knew about her endometriosis diagnosis] told her ‘there’s no point in seeing you because your [GP] is dealing with you’. That was it,” he told the .

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Laura’s condition continued to deteriorate, but it took another visit to A&E and several more weeks of waiting before doctors discovered lesions on her liver through a CT scan in early January, according to a medical transcript.

But it wasn’t until mid-January that doctors started to suspect cancer. Laura’s final prognosis was given on February 2 - more than three months after she first complained of the pain.

Mike didn’t have the words to describe how difficult it was to lose his wife, but agreed it was ‘incredibly difficult’.

The family spent Laura’s last days on a long-awaited holiday to Centre Parcs, but the mum-of-three’s condition turned on their way home.

“When we got her in, I lay down on the bed next to her," Mike said. "We both fell asleep like that, and then her sister woke me up a few hours later and told me she was gone.

“What was the worst for me was the kids coming down the next day and finding mum’s not there. I had to tell the nine-year-old her mum had gone up in the sky with the angels. She just broke down.”

The family travels to Gorton to visit Laura’s grave twice a month and has special traditions to ‘keep her memory alive’. But ‘getting the answers’ is what has kept Mike going the most since his wife’s death.

“I just want someone to put their hands up and say ‘yes, we failed your wife. We will make sure this never happens to anyone else,” he said, adding that he’d had ‘nothing but excuses’ from Pilgrim’s Hospital and Stickney Surgery.

The lack of an inquest means Mike isn’t certain what cancer Laura had. He says he ‘hadn’t been aware’ that an inquest was an option but that he made multiple complaints to the chief executive of the hospital.

A spokesperson for the United Lincolnshire Trust, which runs both Pilgrim Hospital and Stickney Surgery, said: “We would again like to offer our deepest condolences to Laura’s family.

“We are unable to comment on individual cases, but will continue to speak to the family about their concerns as appropriate.”

Mike said he is determined to bring about change, he wants the government to mandate in-person doctor’s appointments. An , has already gathered more than 13,700 signatures.

“The government needs to know,” he added. “I’ve had so many messages of people whose loved ones were misdiagnosed over the phone. It’s got to stop. People have died.”