Personal Injury Solicitors

A 24-year-old mother from Blackpool has died from cervical cancer, after doctors refused her a smear test because she was too young.

Rachel Sarjantson died in August after battling with cancer for a year. She had been refused a smear test which would have detected the early signs of cervical cancer because the legal age at which smear tests are carried out is 25. By the time doctors agreed to give her the test, her cancer was too advanced and was found to be aggressive.

Ms Sarjantson had been due to marry her fiancé Karl Hyde in March – the Daily Mail reports that the couple cancelled their wedding this year after her cancer returned. Her family are calling her death “totally avoidable”.

Ms Sarjantson underwent surgery in the summer of 2014, followed by four weeks of radiotherapy, after which doctors thought she was clear of cancer.

However, in April 2015, she learned that the cancer had returned – by that time her body was too weak to undergo chemotherapy treatment.

Ms Sarjantson – an early years worker who worked with her sister – was transferred to hospital on 30 June, where she remained until her death on 12 August.

Her family says she was so devoted to her 20-month-old son, Ronnie, that she had timed her radiotherapy treatment on the morning of his first birthday,
so that he could still have a party in the evening.

Ms Sarjantson’s mother, Lisa, said:

“She was a loving person and very close with her little boy. Throughout the whole thing, she remained positive.

“She never gave in – and made a bucket list, because as far as she was concerned, she was going to beat it.

“She was trying to plan camping trips. She really wanted to get better and to carry on – as far as she was concerned, that's what she was going to do.

“Even when the doctors said, you don't have to have any more operations if you don't want, she said, ‘No, that would be giving in'.”

Ms Sarjantson’s fiancé Karl Hyde is an Army corporal serving with the second battalion Duke of Lancaster's regiment. He has been given a transfer to be near home to look after their son.

The family is now calling for the age at which smear tests are given to be lowered, to prevent more deaths among young women.

“She didn't need to suffer this,” said her mother.

“It was tragic and completely unavoidable. It shouldn't be happening in this country.”

A recent petition to lower the screening age limit to 16 received more than 300,000 signatures.

In 2003, the Advisory Committee on Cervical Cancer advised increasing the minimum screening age for cervical cancer from 20 to 25. In 2008, the NHS began offering cervical cancer vaccinations to 12- and 13-year-old girls. The jab protects against the HPV virus responsible for 99% of cervical cancer cases.

A spokeswoman from Public Health England told the Mail that screening women below the age of 25 “may do more harm than good”.

“Women below the age of 25 often undergo natural and harmless changes in the cervix that screening would identify as cervical abnormalities. Despite this, cervical cancer is very rare in this age group.

“In most cases, these abnormalities resolve themselves without any need for treatment.

“Research has shown if women suffer unnecessary treatment, this could have an adverse effect on their future childbearing.”

Duncan Lewis Personal Injury Solicitors – No win no fee Cancer Misdiagnosis Claims

Duncan Lewis personal injury solicitors can advise NHS patients who have suffered injury as a result of cancer misdiagnosis on how to make a no win no fee claim for compensation, including claims relating to late diagnosis, failure to diagnose, failure to refer and failure to treat cancers.

Personal injury claims have to be made within three years of the date misdiagnosis became evident.

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For expert legal advice on no win no fee Cancer Misdiagnosis Claims, call Duncan Lewis personal injury solicitors on 020 7923 4020.