A hospital trust has been told to improve its cancer services after the death of a 67-year-old woman whose treatment was delayed.
Retired history teacher and mother-of-two from Chelmsford, named in an ombudsman’s report as Mrs S, first went to her GP in January 2023 with uncomfortable abdominal bloating – but she died three months later with terminal ovarian cancer.
Her son, who was 29 when his mother died, raised concerns about her care at Broomfield Hospital and took the case to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO), who found there had been a delay in diagnosing and treating her cancer.
Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust has apologised to Mrs S’s family for the delay in her care and said it is reviewing how the trust manages the need for “more diagnostic services”.
“I had trust in the NHS, so whenever they told us things, like scans, would happen, we believed them. But it was just delay after delay,” Mrs S’s son said. “My mother and I kept asking questions and for updates but never got anywhere, and the whole situation was just confusing and frustrating,” he added.
The investigation also revealed she had been unsafely discharged from hospital, readmitted three days later in a serious condition and died the next day.
“There were issues with my mum being unsafely discharged from hospital. I was basically just handed a bag of medication with no instructions, advice or support,” her son added.
According to the report, Mrs S had a CT scan on 16 February, which showed the presence of cancer and after a biopsy on 15 March, doctors were able to diagnose her with ovarian cancer on 21 March. NHS England targets at the time were for cancer to be diagnosed within 28 days of referral and treatment to begin within 62 days – her treatment did not start for 81 days.
She was told that while her cancer was not survivable, chemotherapy may extend her life. But due to delays, her chemotherapy was scheduled for 21 April, by which point Mrs S was no longer fit for treatment.
However, the watchdog found that had the trust met the national cancer standard for referral to treatment, Mrs S’s palliative care should have begun on or before 3 April – when she would have been fit for treatment.
The ombudsman found there was no coordination of her palliative care between the hospital and the hospice, again delaying her access. There were also delays in draining her ascites (fluid build-up in the abdomen), which caused “avoidable distress”.
At the time Mrs S was being treated, the trust failed to meet all of the NHS England cancer wait time targets. Only 47.6 per cent of patients were treated within 62 days, compared to the national target of 85 per cent. By July 2025, that had dropped to 46.1 per cent. Trust figures show that at the end of August, 664 patients were waiting longer than 62 days to confirm a cancer diagnosis, or rule it out, and begin treatment.
Following its investigation, PHSO asked the trust to review its performance against national cancer wait time targets and develop a robust plan to help it meet treatment targets, which the trust has committed to doing.
The action plan has been received and the trust has committed to looking at how it can better allocate resources and increase capacity to reduce wait times.
Dawn Scrafield, chief executive of Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust, said: “We offer sincere apologies to Mrs S’s family for the delay in her treatment. Demand has increased, and we are reviewing how we manage the need for more diagnostic services.
“We have begun an integrated improvement plan, working with our health and care system partners to speed up treatment times and get patients to the right place at the right time.”
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