Patient among 11,000 who got faulty Bedfordshire blood results won't trust NHS again
Danielle Downs explained to ITV News Anglia's Rosie Dowsing about the stress the results had caused
A woman who was one of thousands of patients given an unreliable blood test result because of faulty hospital machinery says she will struggle to ever trust the NHS again.
Up to 11,000 people are now being contacted by Bedfordshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust to arrange a retest after bosses discovered a machine used to analyse HbA1c blood tests was giving potentially incorrect results.
It was returning higher readings that it should have - meaning that some patients may have been misdiagnosed as diabetic.
Danielle Downs was told she was suffering from high cholesterol after registering for a routine over-40s health check, and a full blood test at the Luton and Dunstable Hospital suggested she was pre-diabetic.
She said the news had been a "huge worry" for her - though she felt something was not right and went for private tests, which showed she in fact had a healthy blood glucose level.
“I am relieved for myself, I am healthy," said Ms Downs, 44. "But I think going forward, I probably wouldn’t feel comfortable having tests on the NHS again; I will have to find the money to go private."
She said undergoing the retests had come to £675, including travel costs, which had added further stress to the situation.
“I was really worried. I’m in my 40s, we’re reliant on my income at home, I didn’t want to be one of those people, one of those statistics that suddenly suffers from diabetes and is at risk from other factors. So it was a huge worry," she added.The trust said it had experienced an issue in April and July with the HbA1c blood test analysing machines at the Luton and Dunstable Hospital lab, which may have resulted in some patients receiving higher than normal results.
The trust confirmed it was contacting about 11,000 people across Luton, south Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire whose results may have been affected.
All patients are being invited for retests as a precaution, with the trust asking people not to get in touch but to wait for their invitations.
The trust also offered an apology to patients, adding: “We sincerely apologise for any emotional distress and inconvenience that has been caused by this issue.
“We are undertaking a detailed review to find out what went wrong and identify any learning.”
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